


up the arbor to your door (and more)

by oflights



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Domestic, Fluff, M/M, Moving In Together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-06
Updated: 2014-06-06
Packaged: 2018-02-03 15:52:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1750154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oflights/pseuds/oflights
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sidney’s backseat and trunk is full of hastily-packed boxes, suitcases, books and hockey gear.</p>
<p>“You live in truck?” Geno asks, and he sees Kuni waving him off way too late.</p>
            </blockquote>





	up the arbor to your door (and more)

**Author's Note:**

> *ignores everything about the actual real life Penguins organization right now* fic!!! yay! 
> 
> this was supposed to be just a quick little fluffy thing adapted from a plot bunny i had ages ago, and lmao then this happened. dedicated to the memory of the late 2013 Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins (feat. Sidney Crosby) in Pittsburgh. i wish i had a time machine to go back to that month or so because it was glorious, wasn't it? sigh. 
> 
> thanks so, so much to liophael for the beta work! the title is from the decemberists. and i should warn that two characters have consensual sex while intoxicated here and also james neal is a human disaster, so back away if you don't like that. :D

“Uh-oh,” Kuni mutters. Geno looks up automatically, and so does Nealer, both following Kuni’s completely unsubtle gaze over to where Sidney is quietly undressing near his stall.

Geno looks around a bit, trying to pinpoint exactly what Kuni thinks is wrong, but Nealer winces beside him and says, “Aw, damn. Not again.”

“What?” Geno asks, looking at Sidney again, squinting this time. There doesn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary, though; Sidney’s down to his briefs now and tugging his UnderArmour on, his hair sticking up a little from changing and his head bowed. 

Everyone else seems to be giving him a wide berth except for Megna in the stall next to him. He says something to Sidney and Sidney nods a little. On his other side, Brandon’s eyes are wide and he’s glaring at Megna, which Geno also doesn’t understand.

“He got dumped,” Kuni says very softly, and Nealer nods sadly. “Again. Dammit, I really liked this one.”

“Me too,” Nealer says. “She set me up with one of her work friends—the yoga instructor, I told ya, G, it was—”

“Shh,” Kuni hisses, and Glass is smiling, listening to them while he dresses, too. “You are so insensitive, I swear.”

Geno kind of ignores Nealer snapping back at Kuni to keep watching Sidney. Now that he’s looking for it, he can see that Sidney’s shoulders are slumped more than usual, and his eyes are distant while Megna chatters at him, still nodding along but concentrating more on putting his skates on. This is before a practice, not a game, and there is no reason for Sidney to be in his game time zone yet. He is sad, Geno can see that now, and he feels slightly foolish for not seeing it right away.

There are more signs, enough that it would’ve become obvious to Geno eventually even if Kuni hadn’t clarified. Throughout practice, Tanger and Flower basically hover around Sidney as much as possible, jabbing him with their elbows, taunting him gently from the crease, trying to make him laugh. 

Sidney still has enough general hockey giddiness for his laughter to come relatively easy in spite of the pair of recent losses and the presumed dumping, and he seems to know what they’re both doing, smiling a little at them with his cheeks gone pink. But there are lulls when his shoulders slump again, and it’s such a weird sight on the ice. Even when they’re losing, Sidney so rarely looks that defeated. 

Geno doesn’t like it. He snows Nealer while he’s grabbing water from the bench, making him swear uproariously while Sidney giggles. He shows off a bit, potting a goal on Flower high glove side that makes everyone collectively roll their eyes while Flower calls him shitbrains, and delivers a truly ridiculous hipcheck on Glass that makes them both bounce to the ice.

“No one told G there’s no All-Star Game this year!” Dan calls out, trying and failing to sound annoyed. 

Sidney skates over and helps Geno to his feet with an outstretched hand. 

“You’re such a dumbass,” he says, but he sounds fond, and his small smile grows as Glass bumps him from behind and heckles him for not helping him up, too. 

“I know, cannot check like great Sidney Crosby,” Geno says solemnly as they skate back towards their linemates together. “Ass too dumb, not big enough.”

He’s expecting Sidney to hipcheck him for that and he’s not disappointed. Geno laughs really hard but manages to stay on his feet anyway, and Sidney’s laughter echoes beside him. 

It is easy to keep Sidney distracted or entertained on the ice. Afterwards is where Geno is out of his depth, and he’s fine with Duper swooping in then, Kuni backing him up. They talk to Sidney quietly and seriously after everyone’s showered and getting ready to split up, and though Sidney would probably look cornered if it were anyone else, he just looks patient now, and a bit resigned. 

Nealer kind of rolls his eyes at them. “They baby him way too much. That’s why this shit always happens to him.”

Geno huffs, looking down at where he’s tying his shoelaces. “Oh, you Sid expert?”

“No,” Nealer says sulkily, but there is a stubborn set to his shoulders that means he’s not done whining to prove his point. “I’m just saying, if he dealt with these things like a normal person, maybe they wouldn’t happen so much. It’s not like I _want_ him to get dumped all the time, you know?”

“What normal person do?” Geno says, trying not to prickle at the implication that Sidney isn’t normal. In relative terms and in certain circumstances, it might be true, but Geno doesn’t think Nealer should be throwing stones in glass houses; he cares more about his hair than he’s cared about pretty much any girl he’s ever been with. That can’t be normal, either.

“Y’know. Get wasted, bang someone random, wake up all ashamed and hungover, eat a bunch of Mexican food until you’re cured. Easy.” Nealer speaks from obvious experience, and he turns a sly eye on Geno. “Remember after you and Oksana split the last time?”

Geno winces, because he mostly just remembers the morning after and the horrific hangover. It had been pretty entertaining to find Nealer passed out on Geno’s front lawn, though, Paulie and Joey V both standing over him and bickering over what to draw on his face in the chill morning air.

It had been a pretty good distraction from the breakup. He’s not going to tell Nealer that, though, because it will go straight to his head, more hair than brains already and no pumping up necessary. Geno just keeps looking at him, unimpressed, until Nealer knocks into him with his shoulder.

“That helped, don’t give me that look. You loved it. You love strippers.”

“Sid not love strippers. I think.”

“So we won’t get Sid strippers. Strippers are way better than what’s going to happen, though. Now, Duper will just take him home, shut the cat in the den, give him some hot chocolate and let him whine until he tires himself out. Then he’ll tuck Sid in with the rest of his dozens of kids.”

He has to concede that, at least. Hot chocolate and an early bedtime doesn’t sound that terrible to him, but then neither do strippers, really. Geno’s pretty flexible. “Okay. But Duper also put candy in shoes,” because that’s a step that shouldn’t go unmentioned.

“Of course,” Nealer says, like it’s not even a question. “I don’t care, he can fill Sid’s whole closet with candy. But we should get him drunk first. I love getting Sid drunk.”

Geno shrugs noncommittally. He’s pretty sure Sidney won’t go for it—he’s been dumped enough that he has a routine attached to it now, and as often as Sidney goes out with Nealer under normal circumstances, he never likes breaking routine—but they have the day off tomorrow. Geno had been planning to spend it mostly in his underwear, lazing around his house, so going out tonight won’t mess up those plans. It actually might justify them.

“Okay, we’re doing this,” Nealer announces with a firm nod, and Geno watches him stomp over to where Sidney, Duper and Kuni are heading out with Brandon trailing them. 

He loses interest after that, absorbed in his own post-practice routine and content to let Nealer take the lead on this. Sidney likes to use Nealer as a people-deflector when they go out, so he has as good a chance as any of getting Sidney to agree. Geno’s only been out with Sidney and Nealer a handful of times but he thinks they generally have a good time. The only thing stopping Sidney from agreeing right now would be his own neuroses, and Geno frowns to think of that.

He bumps past the little group on the way out and pokes Nealer in the back of the head, interrupting him earnestly making his case for taking Sidney out. “Text me time and place tonight,” Geno tells him.

Sidney turns glazed-over eyes on him. He has his typical look of disinterest on, the one he wears whenever Nealer talks to him for too long, and Geno knows that he’s been saying no to going out. 

“You’re going?” he asks Geno, brow furrowing. Geno nods and gives him a grin.

“Yes. You go, too.”

“But—”

“No but. You go.”

Sidney’s lips press together, and at first Geno thinks he may have pushed too far. Then the corner of his mouth twitches and Geno realizes he’s holding back a smile. He feels a triumphant rush of warmth bubble up in his stomach, mentally fist-pumping. He’s pretty awesome at Sid today.

“Yeah, okay,” Sidney says, shaking his head at him. 

Nealer throws up his hands beside him, looking at Geno incredulously. “Jesus Christ, that’s all it took?” 

“Not smooth enough, Lazy,” Geno says, sticking his tongue out. Nealer elbows him and then turns on the rest of their group with wide eyes.

“You guys in?”

Brandon’s in, Duper and Kuni are not, and they all head out to their cars together, Duper giving Sidney a mock curfew and Nealer telling him to leave his car home. Sidney frowns at that, and they reach his truck first and he frowns at that too while he opens the door. Geno looks at where he’s frowning and whistles lowly, because Sidney’s backseat and trunk is full of hastily-packed boxes, suitcases, books and hockey gear.

“You live in truck?” Geno asks, and he sees Kuni waving him off way too late.

Sidney’s frown deepens, his brows drawn together in consternation, and he sighs heavily. “No, this is just the stuff I left at Kate’s. I guess I should bring it to Mario’s, right?” 

It’s certainly a guest house’s worth of stuff, maybe even a full house, and Geno tries to remember how long Sidney and Kate had been dating. It hadn’t seemed long enough to warrant that much stuff, but maybe this is something about North American relationships that he’s missed.

“Don’t deal with it now, eh,” Kuni says gently. “Just leave it and think about it tomorrow.”

Everyone snorts, including Sidney, who looks at Kuni like he’s crazy. Brandon pipes in, “You can follow me home and leave it at my house, I’ll drive tonight. And you can crash, I’ll make juice.”

“Or you can crash with me,” Nealer says, and everybody snorts again. “Oh fuck off, I have furniture now, and at least I have a finished house of my own, _Sid._ ”

“No kale,” Sidney tells Brandon, ignoring Nealer completely. “Seriously, I don’t care what Glasser says, it’s not worth it.”

“No kale,” Brandon says solemnly, making a cross over his heart and giving Sidney a fist bump. “Spinach all the way, bud.”

“Good. I’m in, let’s go.”

They all break up then, Nealer grumbling to himself and Geno chuckling his way over to his own car. He waits behind Sidney to pull out of the parking garage, feeling his heart twinge a little as he looks at the shapes of the boxes in the trunk, piled almost too high. 

His route home takes him past Sidney’s new house, which stands empty and shrouded in shrubbery, ostensibly ready to be filled and yet still neglected in that sense, still not ready to be a home. Geno’s heart twinges again, and he turns the radio up higher.

He thinks Nealer has the right idea, really, which could be a first. Sidney’s not a kid, and they shouldn’t baby him. He’s a grown man who makes his own choices about where and how he chooses to live, and Geno refuses to concern himself with those choices. 

Geno lets himself into his own house, empty in a different way than Sidney’s. His house is some approximation of a home, as close as he can get it so far away from most of his friends and family. It’s easier to be here with other people, but there are moments when he understands Sidney’s reluctance to move into his new place completely. Geno’s house feels big when it’s just him, and it’s not a great feeling. 

The only solution is to fill his time with people, so Geno moves around his kitchen with practiced ease, getting stuff out to make dinner while he pays half of his attention to his TV. He sends emails and texts for people back home to wake up to while he eats, chuckling when a friend is still awake to answer him, and he smiles when Nealer texts him when and where to meet up. 

He’s used to passing time by himself and while it’s not really his favorite thing, Geno gets by. It’s not long before Geno gets ready to go out and calls a cab, and if it seems like longer it’s probably just because he’s kind of looking forward to it. If Nealer has his way, they’ll get Sidney drunk tonight. Geno kind of loves getting Sid drunk, too.

Sidney and Brandon are already at the bar when Geno gets there, joined by Beau, who looks bored, and Bort, who is looking at his phone. He is not surprised that Nealer’s late.

The kids perk up when Geno joins them and muscles between their barstools, throwing his arms around them both and beaming at Sidney and Brandon. “Wait for me for party to start? Good. What we drink?” 

They all have beers in front of them and Sidney tips his at Geno. Geno rolls his eyes and waves over the bartender. “You all boring, we get shots, I’m buy.”

“Should we wait for Nealer?” Bort asks, with a look that says he finds his own question hilarious. Everyone laughs, and Geno knocks his tequila shot against Bort’s and meets Sidney’s eyes as he downs it.

Sidney drops his shot glass down on the bar and keeps his wet lips pressed together for a moment, looking thoughtful. He meets Geno’s eyes again and shrugs a little, a smile forming. “Okay, I’ve got the next one, let’s keep going.”

“Hell yeah,” Beau says, finally looking interested. Geno feels a weird sort of pride for both of them.

They’re all nursing drinks and talking over each other by the time Nealer joins them with Paulie trailing after him. Sidney has the slight flush of a few shots in his cheeks and Geno feels the same buzz, and Paulie looks at both of them and then starts peeking into glasses to figure out who’s the driver.

“It’s me, Ma,” Brandon says, waving his Jack-less Coke and sipping at it through his little straw. “Relax and I’ll buy you a drink.”

“You started without me?” Nealer whines, parking next to Sidney and leaning in to sniff his breath. Sidney recoils, leaning all the way into Brandon and giving Nealer such a look of pure distaste that Geno chokes on his drink laughing. 

Next to him, Bort goes, “What?” and Geno can’t explain why Sidney and Nealer’s friendship might be his favorite on the team, just laughs some more until Bort loses interest and starts talking to Beau again. 

Geno drifts closer to the adults, refreshing his drink and listening to Sidney and Brandon debate juices. It sounds like a comfortable conversation and Sidney seems happy with it, laughing a lot with his head tilted back. He looks relaxed enough that Geno wonders if Brandon’s fashioning himself into a younger Duper in terms of learning how to handle Sid when he’s not at his best, as if there’s any particular trick to it. Geno has always been of the opinion that Sidney doesn’t need handling. He’s easy to get along with and navigate, no tricks necessary in Geno’s experience.

“You try booze in these?” he cuts in when Sidney and Brandon are going in circles about when to use kefir. Nealer snickers into his elbow and Paulie huffs, but Sidney looks thoughtful again, leaning over the bar and staring into his drink.

“Well obviously not for the morning ones, but I bet they’d make good cocktails. I never thought about that.” Geno had been half-kidding, but Sidney looks genuinely intrigued and Geno has to hold back a snicker of his own, imagining him mixing vodka or tequila into one of his complicated juices.

“God, Sid’s gonna get wasted drinking juice,” Brandon says, groaning lightly. “What’ve you done, Geno?”

“Make good suggestion,” Geno says. “Genius. More fun than all of you.”

“Glasser won’t approve,” Nealer says gleefully. Sidney rolls his eyes and finishes off his drink pointedly; Geno grins and follows suit and Nealer’s hand goes up for the bartender, fast and eager.

They eventually attract a small crowd of girls who gravitate towards Beau and Bort. It takes Nealer all of two seconds to slink his way down and join that group, loudly calling Beau “kid” and ruffling his hair like an asshole. Geno nods at a pretty blonde girl sizing him up, then looks at Sidney looking into his drink again, giving off discouraging vibes that confuse Geno until he remembers why they’re here. 

“Sid,” Nealer calls over the sudden rush of a crowd around the bar. “Hey, Sid, this is—”

“Another drink,” Geno says quickly, moving around Brandon into Nealer’s abandoned spot next to Sidney. Sidney blinks at him, surprised.

“What? I’m not done yet.”

“Very slow,” Geno tells him, clicking his tongue. “Slowest. No way to get drunk.”

“I’m not getting drunk,” Sidney says with the conviction of someone well on his way to drunk. Geno feels flush with affection, a happy buzz from his own drinking. “Hey, I wonder if gin would make the kale stuff taste better.”

“Nothing make kale taste better,” Geno says. “Finish drink, Sid.”

“Kate likes kale,” Sidney says, and Geno curses under his breath. On one side of him, Paulie has a girl, a few moments away from taking her home, and Brandon is laughing at Nealer striking out with another girl. “Liked kale? Well I guess she still likes kale, she’s not dead.”

“Maybe not finish drink,” Geno says, concerned, but Sidney downs it and Geno gives a heavy sigh. “You not together very long, yes? Not serious?”

“It was kind of serious,” Sidney says, stirring the melting ice at the bottom of his glass with his stirrer. “A little serious. I—I like serious.”

“Crazy. Lots of girls. You not Nealer, you good guy, lots of girls to see that.”

“Yeah, but.” Sidney screws his face up a bit, and Geno is still trying to think of ways to derail this when he thinks of what Nealer said about coddling Sid. When it had ended with Oksana, Geno had gotten his bitching out. He’d vented pretty well and it hurt, like bleeding a wound, but he felt better for it in the end. And Geno hadn’t imagined he’d be the one stuck listening to this, but right now it feels like the least he can do. “Okay, but what if there are lots of girl—”

“Lots of guys, too,” Geno says lowly, trying to be supportive on the wisps of a memory involving the Penguins in a bar in 2009, Sidney drunker than Geno had ever seen him and pinned up against the wall by some guy that Billy had eventually hauled off. Sidney was pink and giggly and only bothered that Billy had chased the guy away, and they’ve never talked about it but it’s knowledge that Geno’s kept in the back of his head. 

Sidney is pink again now, and when he looks at the bartender his eyes are a little wild. “Right,” he says shortly. Another drink appears in front of him. “Yeah, lots of—lots of guys too. But that’s not the point. Maybe it doesn’t matter if there are lots of girls and lots of guys if there’s something wrong with me.”

Geno snorts, then looks at Sidney closely and realizes he’s not kidding. “Nothing wrong with you. Drama queen.”

“I’m serious, Geno. You know, hasn’t there ever been something you thought—something you knew might be wrong, but it’s the way you are so you can’t just change it about yourself? And you want to fix it but you can’t.”

“Like faceoffs?” Geno asks. Sidney lets out a yip of a laugh into his drink, and Geno grins at him. “But I fix faceoffs.”

“You did,” Sidney says, chuckling. “You did fix your faceoffs. I don’t think this is like faceoffs.”

“Nothing wrong with you,” Geno says again, rolling his eyes. “You good person, make someone lucky and happy. Feel sorry for yourself not work.”

“I’m not feeling sorry for myself! I’m trying to be practical.”

“You being sad. Okay be sad, I get sad, Nealer sad all the time because he have sad life, Suttsy sad because he drink too much sad juice. But don’t be dumb.”

“I’m not dumb,” Sidney mutters darkly, and Geno smiles encouragingly until Sidney raises his eyebrow and adds, “That’s not what’s wrong with me,” because he is a stubborn jackass.

“Nothing wrong with you,” Geno repeats, starting to get annoyed. Sidney keeps his eyebrow raised.

“Oh yeah? So I’m flawless, eh? Perfect in every way?”

“Yes. Sure. Perfect human. Only one thing wrong with you.”

“Yeah? What’s that?”

“You not drunk enough,” Geno says.

Sidney tips his head back to laugh, and Geno finds himself laughing with him, eyes catching on the stretched line of his throat for a moment, before he blinks and makes himself look away. He shakes his head and finishes his own drink, and when he looks back at Sidney, Sidney is looking at him with bright eyes, an interested sheen that Geno has never seen directed at him before, not from Sid or any other teammates.

It’s only a little disconcerting. Not enough to keep him from ordering more drinks, though, or looking at Sidney’s fingers wrapped around his glass, pressing into condensation and tapping it with his short, neat fingernails. 

There’s nothing wrong with Sidney, Geno decides, nothing that he can see. But there’s a lot right with him. He reminds himself to tell Sidney that, but forgets during the next round, the thought swallowed up in watching Sidney’s mouth move. His lips form words a bit clumsily and they are very wet and pink, and Geno shakes his head again to clear it.

Their group dwindles, as it often does on nights like this. First it swells with girls and Sidney mostly ignores them, and Geno follows his lead for no reason at all—he could go home with someone. He’d have better luck than Nealer, he thinks.

Beau flirts long enough that his girlfriend’s texts make him feel guilty; he’s the first to leave and he goes alone because Bort is watching basketball highlights with a girl sitting half on her stool and half on his lap. It’s awkward-looking and Sidney and Geno are quietly waiting for them to fall, snickering together.

“Are we conspiring against the rookies?” Nealer asks, flinging both arms around them. Sidney is just drunk enough that he doesn’t immediately shrug Nealer off, so Geno does it for him, muscling Nealer backwards and making him stumble enough that they break into snickers again. Sidney tips to the side, closer to Geno, just as precarious as Bort’s girl, and Geno tips closer too, to offset the precariousness. 

“Bort’s not a rookie anymore,” Sidney says. His know-it-all voice survives all levels of drunkenness, and Geno is drunk enough that he finds it endearing instead of annoying. “He’s all grown up. When’s that gonna happen for you, Nealer?”

“Never,” Geno answers, smiling at Nealer when he scowls.

“You fuckers. You—Paulie, hey, this wasn’t the plan!” They lose Paulie next, coolly ignoring Nealer’s plaintive protests to leave with the girl he’d been talking to pretty much all night. Nealer slumps over the bar and Brandon pats him on the back.

“What was the plan?” Sidney asks. Nealer snaps his head up and frowns at him.

“Strip club. Was gonna buy you a lap dance.”

Sidney’s nose wrinkles and Geno finds himself captivated by it, eyes caught long enough that he has to shake his head again and briefly wonder what’s wrong with him. He’s definitely drunk, he can feel that, on his way to sloppy drunk if he keeps going. He’s not going to keep going, though.

“Why do you need Paulie for that?” Sidney says.

Nealer cracks up, eyes dancing. “Have you ever seen Paulie get a lap dance? That would be the real entertainment of the night.”

“Can’t say I have. Can’t say I want to. You’re weird, dude.”

“I want a lap dance,” Nealer says, leaning his head down into his arms and mumbling most of that into them. Brandon pats him again.

Sidney stands up, wobbles a little, and says, “Good luck with that. I’m gonna hit the bathroom.” He puts on a comically determined look, one that makes Geno seriously doubt his ability to make it to the bathroom, and maybe that’s why he’s compelled to follow him, mumbling something either in English or Russian as he goes. 

Sidney makes it, though. He disappears into the bathroom and comes out drying his hands on his thighs. He smiles at Geno, waiting outside the bathroom and leaning against the wall, and says, “Hey,” like they’re meeting for the first time tonight.

“Hey,” Geno says back, feeling like an idiot. 

Sidney looks up at him, close enough that their height difference feels more pronounced and noticeable. Sidney doesn’t look like he minds, though, his eyes still bright. He giggles and says, “I’m so drunk, G,” and Geno grins at him, his stomach fluttering oddly.

“Good. Now you perfect.” 

“Yeah,” Sidney says, licking his lips. Geno follows the movement with his eyes and then feels himself blush when he sees Sidney looking back, noticing what he’d been looking at. And then Sidney very carefully licks his lips again, and they’re spread in that open, happy smile still. Geno’s mouth opens, and he recognizes the light in Sidney’s eyes now, what that interest means. He’d never imagined he’d see it here, with _Sidney_ , like this, but—

There’s a lot right with Sidney. Geno thinks it’s time he told him that, or maybe showed him.

“Hey,” Geno says, lowering his voice and pushing away the incredulity that comes with talking to Sidney like this. “You want go home with me?”

Sidney bites his bottom lip, smile pinching inward as his eyes narrows a bit. “Home,” Sidney says, tilting his head. “Like—”

“Yes,” Geno says, because Sidney gets it, and he gets it, and they’ve never had to spell everything out with each other so there’s no reason to start now. “Go home with me. Come on.”

He leans in close, and they’re blocking the door to the bathroom completely, tucked together in the small hallway outside. The space is small enough that when Geno moves forward Sidney is against the wall, and if Sidney took just a few steps forward he could back Geno up against another wall. Sidney stays where he is, though, looking up at Geno, licking his lips one more time and then nodding slowly.

“Yeah,” he says, his smile growing again. “Yeah, come on,” like it was his idea.

He leads Geno out of the bar, not even glancing back at the last of the group they’re ditching. Geno follows dutifully, close enough to crowd against Sidney’s back but not touching him, though his hands twitch with wanting to. He watches Sidney’s bowlegged walk instead, still a little wobbly but sure, too, like a march. It makes Geno dimly think of them walking out onto the ice, and he grins to himself.

Outside, it’s cool and damp and the cab line is atrocious, so Sidney calls for a driver. Up ahead, Geno can see Paulie and his girl, a few people back on the line and making out up against the wall of the building. He idly imagines being able to do that with Sidney and watches them for that reason, but has to settle for leaning in close enough to touch now, his front behind Sidney’s back, bumping shoulders. 

Sidney tips his head all the way up to smile at Geno. His cheeks look even pinker out here under the streetlights, and Geno wants to cup them in his hands to feel how warm they are. He shoves his hands in his jacket pockets instead and stoops a bit low. If he tipped his face in, and if Sidney went on his tiptoes, they could kiss. They don’t, though. Sidney just blinks at him slowly, eyes hazy, and his mouth drops open.

Their SUV pulls up and honks and Sidney jumps, his mouth snapping closed. Geno shuffles him forward and opens the backseat door for him, putting a hand on his lower back instinctively when Sidney stumbles getting in. 

“My house,” Geno tells the driver when he’s in the back too, Sidney scooted over but not all the way. A person couldn’t sit between them in the roomy backseat; maybe a small child but not any regular-sized person. When Geno maneuvers to snap his seatbelt on, his knee bumps Sidney’s, and Sidney looks at him with those bright eyes gone hot. Geno swallows hard and stays on his side, in the proper seat. Sidney doesn’t put his seatbelt on.

“Hey,” he says, the thought occurring to him as good sense flashes through him with the red of the traffic light. Geno has his arm spread out across the back of the seat, an instinct, and Sidney tips his head to lean the back of it against his forearm, blinking at him. “You very drunk?”

“Not too drunk,” Sidney says immediately, like he’d been rehearsing it. 

“Sure?” Geno checks. He doesn’t think about how drunk he is—drunk enough to be doing this without overthinking it, but not drunk enough that he’s unaware of the possible consequences. He’s also not drunk enough to keep from caring about taking advantage, but Sidney nods his head slowly, his hair ruffling against Geno’s jacketed arm. 

“Really sure,” he says. His smile is small and sweet now, and it makes Geno’s chest ache a bit, out of nowhere. “Thanks for inviting me.” He says it with that upward lilt of his voice, earnest with a dash of playful, and Geno purposefully bumps their knees together, the only active touch he’ll initiate when they still have a driver to witness it. He wants to curl his arm up so that he can run his fingers through Sidney’s hair, pull him in close enough to kiss and cradle his head in the crook of his elbow while their mouths touch.

Geno waits, though, rubbing one hand over his own thigh, swallowing hard and not taking his eyes away from Sidney. 

After a small eternity, they pull up in Geno’s driveway. They thank the driver and Geno gets out first, feeling a little crazy and ridiculous enough to stumble around the car to open the door on Sidney’s side. Sidney bursts out laughing when Geno does it, hopping out of the SUV while his laughter echoes into the wet night, and he trips into Geno’s arms and holds on, a warm, vibrating weight against Geno’s chest.

“You’re a gentleman,” Sidney says breathlessly, as Geno starts walking them up the front walkway, behind Sidney again and trying to coordinate their steps. He toes at the back of Sidney’s shoe by accident, trips on the first front step, and Sidney laughs softly and pulls him in very tight against him. “And you’re warm.”

“Yes,” Geno says, mock solemn. He hears the hiss of tires rolling out and wraps his arms completely around Sidney because he can now. They’re almost safe inside and he can hold and kiss Sidney all he wants, everywhere he wants. “For you.”

“For me,” Sidney repeats, looking dizzy for a minute. Geno nods, closes his eyes and touches his forehead to the side of Sidney’s head, and he feels Sidney’s eyelashes fluttering against his cheek. “Take me inside,” Sidney whispers, and Geno shudders and nods again, already groping for his keys. 

They’ve barely cleared the doorway when Sidney turns all the way in Geno’s arms and kisses him, up on his toes and leaning enough of his weight against Geno that he has to scramble for something solid to hold them up. He bangs into his coat rack and sinks against a fluffy winter coat he has hanging there, and Sidney trips on someone’s shoes and laughs against Geno’s mouth, breaking the kiss.

“Sorry,” he says, his eyes big in the light from the portico streaming in from the open front door. “I didn’t know I wanted to kiss you that bad, but—” Sidney sucks in a deep breath, and he’s close enough that Geno can feel his heart pounding fast.

Geno leans down and gives Sidney another kiss, gentler and steadier, less desperate but every bit as eager. Sidney moves into it, planting his feet under him so Geno doesn’t have to hold him up as much, but Geno still holds him, keeping Sidney in his arms until he feels he’s been sufficiently kissed for the immediate future, and they can break to close the door and get some lights on. 

He turns Sidney around, squeezing his hands at his hips, before he lets go to get the door and the lights. “Make yourself home,” Geno says, the words feeling clumsy in his mouth, but Sidney is already heeding them, toeing his shoes off and hanging up his jacket with his tongue between his teeth, his nostrils flared. It all seems like a lot of effort and feels that way to Geno, too, when he does the same things, but pulling Sidney back in close is no effort at all, and Geno’s hands move like they’ve made these exact moves a million times before.

“You wanna just do this in the hall?” Sidney asks, voice light and teasing. 

Geno grins at him, smacks three quick kisses to his lips and grins harder when Sidney chases his mouth after the last one, pulls him in for a longer kiss that sees Sidney’s tongue flicking out to swipe at Geno’s lips. “You complain?” Geno says, letting his own tongue slip past his lips and poke out, but holding back from kissing, relishing the look of disgruntlement that flashes across Sidney’s face in response. “Spoiled, need comfort and bed and take care?”

“I thought you were a gentleman,” Sidney says, the last word shivering on a laugh. “But I’m really not complaining. I think I’d have sucked your dick in the bathroom back at the bar if I’d had like two more drinks—”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Geno says very firmly and fervently. “Sid, fuck.”

“Is that a complaint?” Sidney says. He smirks, which means Geno has to kiss him and has to use his tongue now. He shudders at how easily Sidney opens for him, making a sound like a sigh into Geno’s mouth as Geno’s tongue sweeps into his. 

“No,” Geno says when they break apart again. He makes sure he’s looking down and there’s eye contact. “No complaint. Want give you two more drinks and see what you do now.”

“I don’t need two more drinks here,” Sidney says. It’s entirely plain and earnest and matter-of-fact and it shouldn’t be that hot, but it means Geno _has_ to get Sidney upstairs, has to get him in a bed and kiss him until neither of them can see straight. 

“Have to go up the stairs,” Geno tells him solemnly, already leading him by the wrist towards his winding staircase. “Worth it,” he adds, and Sidney laughs softly against his back, dropping his forehead forward to lean against his shoulder. 

Things slow down in the bedroom a bit. They are faced with the practicalities of removing clothes, something they’ve done a million times in front of each other, but now it feels huge to Geno. He finds his mind catching on the fact that Sidney has never been in his bedroom before, and that the line they’re about to cross is uncharted territory in what’s basically the most important professional relationship he has right now.

Sidney looks at Geno’s hands stilled on his belt buckle, gives him a shaky smile that shows he’s not alone in thinking like this. “Hey,” he says, like they’re meeting for the first time tonight, one more time. It makes Geno smile back, get his fingers moving again so he can drop his pants and step out of them.

“Hey,” Geno says, drumming up all the want and heat that’s been burbling in his stomach pretty much all night for Sidney, fizzing from the alcohol and driven by the brightness in Sidney’s eyes. Sidney’s smile goes steadier and he looks determined when he drops his pants, too, and steps neatly out of them, going for his shirt with the same determination.

Geno backs them onto the bed when they’re both down to underwear. He wants to take a few minutes to look at Sidney because he never has like this, not in this context, has never looked at all of him and wanted him in the consuming way he does now. 

He’s too hungry for Sidney and nervous in turns, though, relies instead on the actions that feel easy, the way his hands feel right and fitting against Sidney’s soft, smooth skin.

He runs his hands up and down Sidney’s ribs and looks at his face instead of the rest of him, settling Sidney comfortably onto his back while Geno stretches out partly beside him and nearly on top of him, a good position to kiss. Sidney takes the hint, his arms going around Geno’s neck and his fingers sliding into Geno’s hair as their mouths meet again.

They kiss with no real progression or notion of steps, mouths opening easy and fast against each other. It’s wet, Geno notes, and he likes that, likes the sloppy, clumsy slide of Sidney’s tongue against his and the sweet taste of rum he licks off the roof of Sidney’s mouth. 

Sidney makes breathy, happy noises throughout the kiss, his hips making restless little movements against the thigh Geno has shoved between his legs. His fingernails scratch lightly through the short hairs at the base of Geno’s neck, and it feels so good that Geno’s marveling that he’s not the one purring, that it’s Sidney who can’t hold back the sounds of him enjoying himself. Geno likes these sounds a lot, imagines he’ll remember them long after this is over, and he wants to hear more.

He’s hard in his briefs and he can feel that Sidney is too. It’s all surreal, that this is _Sidney_ , after all these years, and this is where they’ve wound up together, and he has to break the kiss to breathe for a minute.

Geno looks at Sidney’s face, pink now with a healthy, attractive flush, and the surreality doesn’t quite go away but a certain kind of sense suddenly follows it. Sidney is looking up at Geno like this is exactly where they belong, exactly like this, and Geno can’t help but agree in the face of that. 

He kisses Sidney’s nose on a whim and Sidney’s whole face seems to split in its grin. Sidney leans up to kiss Geno’s neck as best he can and Geno leans down so Sidney doesn’t have to strain, groaning lowly as Sidney kisses and sucks at his sensitive, thin skin with the barest hint of pressure.

“Mm,” Sidney says, pointed now, not like the sounds it seemed like he couldn’t control. Geno feels a little ridiculous for the flush of affection that runs through him following that, and he thinks the smile he has on, buried in Sidney’s hair, is just as ridiculous.

“I taste good?” Geno asks. Sidney’s giggle tickles him and Geno kisses his hair just for being so sweet.

“Yeah,” Sidney breathes out. Geno feels him nod, and then below his waist he feels Sidney’s hand, gentle and searching. It closes as best it can over the line of Geno’s hard cock in his briefs, running his fingers up and down. Geno closes his eyes and muffles another groan into Sidney’s hair. “But I wanna taste you somewhere else.”

He keeps handling Geno’s cock like that, gentle but sure, and Geno unconsciously rocks into it, his arousal flaring. Sidney’s lips go back to his neck and he nuzzles him there, too, releasing a contented-sounding sigh on an exhale, and Geno’s heart feels full and achy. He breathes deeply through his nose and tries to grab control of the gooey feelings dripping through him, because he’s drunk but not _that_ drunk, and lets Sidney stroke him and shift around like he’s thinking of moving.

Then Geno says, “Me first,” and moves with less hesitation than Sidney had, making his way fast down Sidney’s body and peppering his skin with kisses as he goes.

First Sidney laughs and says, “Geno!” like he’s scandalized. But then Geno tugs down his briefs and gets his first look at Sidney’s hard cock, slapping against his belly when it’s released, and Sidney gasps, squirming while Geno allows himself to stare. “Ah,” he says when Geno breathes over his cock, kisses the head very gently and keeps _looking_ , more than he’d thought he’d want to. 

He remembers what Sidney said before, that he didn’t know he wanted to kiss Geno that badly. Geno didn’t know he wanted to run his mouth lightly over Sidney’s cock, to lip at it gently and then lick the tip when Sidney makes a hitching, whimpery noise. Sidney’s hand flies to his hair and Geno presses into that, making an encouraging noise that gets him rewarded with a tug and a low, pleading sound that makes him look up at Sidney’s face.

Sidney’s starting to get sweaty, and his eyes are dark and hot, still bright but feverish now. There’s something sweet about the open want on his face, and something sweet about the curve of his cock that makes Geno lick it more, tracing the curve and bumping his cheek to it when he’s reached the tip again.

“Geno,” Sidney says again, not even a bit scandalized this time and no laughter in his voice. Geno smiles against his cock, slides his lips down to pucker against Sidney’s balls, which makes his thighs tense up enough that Geno stops and looks up to check in again. “No,” Sidney says, strangled, and he shoves at Geno’s head back down with his hand until Geno is laughing softly into the wiry curls at the base of Sidney’s cock. 

He sucks each of Sidney’s balls in turn experimentally, and is pretty pleased with the results, Sidney’s thighs going tense and shaky and his back arching to tilt his hips into Geno’s mouth. He licks up to where the tip of Sidney’s cock has gotten wet, and sticks his tongue out to taste. 

Sidney gives out a breathy moan and his voice sounds smaller and just that little bit of desperate when he says, “Please, hey, I need—”

Geno starts sucking Sidney’s cock without him asking for it, not wanting him to think he has to ask. He wants to make Sidney come so he goes back to being loose and happy, releasing the tension of arousal that’s building up in him. Geno feels that tension in his own gut, aching in his balls, but concentrates on the thought of swallowing Sidney down and then kissing him again, and squirms with the thought and the want of getting them there.

It doesn’t take very long, not by design. Sidney’s hand has clenched tight in Geno’s hair and he’s being so good about keeping his hips still, but not good at all about hiding how difficult it is for him. There’s something about that practiced politeness, that inherent sweetness that Sidney can’t chase even as his voice cracks and he swears breathlessly, tugs hard enough at Geno’s hair until Geno’s eyes are watering—that makes Geno’s heart feel heavy in a good way. 

He takes in enough of Sidney’s cock that he can feel the push at the back of his throat, and Sidney shouts out harshly. He says Geno’s name again frantically, and Geno pulls back only enough that he can swallow comfortably, keeping the tip of Sidney’s dick tight between his lips. 

The best part is watching Sidney unfurl through his orgasm, better even than feeling him release on his tongue. His eyes fly open, wide and glassy, and his back finally drops to the bed again. His thighs, when Geno rubs them with two open, soothing palms, still feel thick and solid but aren’t so corded with tension, and the first thing Geno does when he lets Sidney slip out of his mouth is kiss the soft, vulnerable skin on the inside of each of his thighs.

He rubs his cheek there and Sidney shudders all over, gasping and petting Geno’s hair. Geno looks up at him, propping his chin on his lower belly, and waits for him to catch his breath so he can steal it away with another kiss.

“Feel good?” Geno asks, smirking a little when Sidney just nods with his mouth open. It takes a minute for Sidney to catch it, but when he does he licks his lips and gives Geno the sweet, sleepy smile Geno had been hoping for. He looks like he’s just woken up from an awesome nap on the plane, and Geno marvels that he’d never noticed before how good Sidney looks like that.

“C’mere,” Sidney says, reaching out with grasping fingers. Geno slides up, back in the same position as before, letting Sidney take half of his weight and cupping the side of Sidney’s face.

Sidney kisses him weakly, long enough that Geno has to shift against him impatiently, rubbing his cock against Sidney’s hip restlessly. Sidney looks down between them with an arched brow and then smiles some more, dropping his head back lazily against his pillow. 

“I still wanna taste you, but you kinda knocked me out.”

Geno is nearing the kind of desperation that makes grinding out an orgasm through his underwear a legitimate, preferable option, but then Sidney is making fussy, grabby movements and gesturing. “What?” Geno asks, lost in a haze of how badly he needs to come, and Sidney jerks his head like that means anything. “English, Sid. Need words to know what you want.”

“Up here, do it like this,” Sidney says, gesturing at his face, and Geno still doesn’t quite get it until Sidney licks his lips and opens his mouth wide. Then Geno stares at Sidney, unwilling to hope he’s understanding correctly, because suddenly it feels like a dirty dream come true. 

“What? You let me…like that?”

“Yeah,” Sidney says. He nods eagerly, pointedly pressing his head back into the pillow. When Geno keeps staring for another second, because he feels like the image alone might just make him come, Sidney huffs impatiently and says, “Come on, fuck my mouth, Geno. Jeez.”

He blushes scarlet right after he says it and Geno drops a hurried kiss to his cheek, letting out a shaky, excited breath. Then he moves, because he’s not going to ignore an invitation like that, and his stomach is jumping as his mind replays those words leaving Sidney’s mouth.

The surreality hits once more as he straddles Sidney’s chest, angles his cock the right way to press it into Sidney’s mouth. It’s a surreality that he wants to chase, though, and to push and keep pushing—Geno suddenly feels that it’s important to hear whatever other filthy shit Sidney has to say.

Not that he can say any of it now, though, because his mouth is filled with Geno’s cock, and he seems pretty happy about that, his eyes bright and almost challenging as Geno slides in as much as he dares. When Geno starts rocking slowly in and out, Sidney sucks carefully and precisely, never breaking eye contact until Geno has to close his own eyes, overwhelmed. 

When he dares to crack them open again, he thinks Sidney might be trying to smile around his dick, and Geno has to bow his head and groan very harshly, rocking in harder. 

Every time Geno’s balls softly slap Sidney’s chin, he groans around Geno’s dick and it drives Geno nuts, his stomach muscles jumping and his breathing going hard and fast. The bottom half of Sidney’s face has gone slick with spit and he’s still sweaty and a little pink and Geno thinks he’s going to lose it looking at him, can already feel his balls tightening up and his thighs shaking. 

He grunts and pulls out to come, jerking himself on his knees and trying to aim away from Sidney’s face, but Sidney picks his head up and licks the tip of Geno’s dick to get the first spurt. Geno groans so harshly he doesn’t recognize his own sounds, wobbles on his knees and releases the rest mostly on Sidney’s neck, a line of come shooting over his chain. 

“That was amazing,” Sidney says as Geno slumps down on his chest. Geno gives him an incredulous glare, because that’s not going to help him get his shit together enough to climb off Sidney and give him some space, but Sidney just looks back placidly, looking totally pleased with himself. He blinks. “It was good, right?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Geno says fervently, because he’s pretty sure that Sidney is earnestly asking. “Very good. So good I stupid now, can’t move.”

“You’re not hurting me,” Sidney says, squirming a bit under Geno’s weight. “Take your time.”

Geno grumbles lowly and makes himself climb off then, crawling backwards far enough that he can catch Sidney’s lips against his and take his mouth in a long, deep kiss. He looks at Sidney again when he breaks the kiss, at the come striping his skin and his red, swollen mouth, and presses his cheek to Sidney’s, nuzzling at his ear.

“Come on. Get up and we get clean.”

“Good thinking,” Sidney says, yawning widely.

Geno leads the way into his bathroom, running the warm water in his sink and picking out a washcloth for Sidney. Sidney takes it and mops at his neck in front of the mirror, and Geno gets caught watching him. Sidney smiles at him in the mirror, and Geno feels his heart pound a little too much for right after sex, so he turns and heads for the toilet to distract himself.

He hears Sidney giggle softly, and when he gets back to the sink he sees Sidney bent over the counter, splashing water on his face and then staying slumped. Geno has no choice but to look now, dragging his eyes over Sidney’s bare ass, shoving down the urge to come over and grab it. He comes close enough to check on Sidney’s face, meeting his eyes in the mirror again, and Sidney gives him a small, tired smile.

“You ever suddenly realize how drunk you are? That always happens to me in the bathroom.”

Geno purses his lips and leans in close to Sidney, bumping their naked hips and bending, too, so he can lightly finger Sidney’s soft cock hanging between his legs. “Not too drunk,” he says pointedly, and Sidney nods and leans into him, twitching under his hand until Geno pulls it away.

“Nope. Not too drunk. This was—this was really fucking good, okay?”

“Okay,” Geno says, laughing when Sidney knocks his head against his shoulder and grins at him in the mirror again. Geno looks at them both in the mirror, looks at the hints of pink fading on Sidney’s ribs and his chain glinting in the overhead light, and watches Sidney’s smile get tremulous. 

Sidney starts shifting from foot to foot, looking distinctly unsure of himself, and he says, “Should I—” and breaks off, like he’s not even sure what to ask. 

Geno gets the awkwardness slowly, but soon enough that he can blink and start to consider that Sidney is trying to ask if he should get his things and leave. It’s a fair question, even if Sidney hadn’t exactly been able to ask it, and Geno thinks about past experiences before mentally shaking his head and deciding none of them are good examples for this.

Normal practice is for Geno’s hookups to leave after; he either calls a driver or a cab for them. He’s never shared a bed overnight with a man except platonically, has only done it with the handful of women he’s seriously dated, and so past precedent would call for politely kicking Sidney out.

But this is uncharted territory. Sidney is in the gray area that exists between a girlfriend and a hookup, and Geno has no protocol for that but knows it has to be different from normal. Geno doesn’t think about his preferences for what to do here, because he thinks he’s still too drunk to examine them fully, and instead thinks about what the right thing to do is, what that feels like.

“Here,” Geno says, bending again and popping open one of the cabinets under the sink. “Have extra toothbrush, not have to wake up with dick breath.” 

Sidney lets out a honk of a laugh that sounds more nervous than anything, but takes the toothbrush with a stronger smile and bumps their hips again, having to lean up to do it. “Thanks,” he says, turning the water on again. “Can I borrow your toothpaste too?”

Geno lets out an exaggerated groan, hiding his smile when he ducks to grab his own toothbrush and the toothpaste. “Greedy, greedy, I have to give _everything_ ,” and squeezes some onto his toothbrush before passing it over to a beaming Sidney. “Too much,” Geno complains when Sidney takes some for himself, and Sidney cracks up. “Why you need so much? Barely have any teeth left.”

Sidney says something that’s garbled by the toothbrush in his mouth and Geno feels hopelessly fond of him, dangerously so, enough that he makes himself concentrate on brushing his own teeth. He keeps giving Sidney a hard time as they continue getting ready for bed, lending him sleep clothes and a phone charger and calling him spoiled. 

He only stops when they’ve slid under the covers and settled into the huge bed together, not touching but close enough that Geno can feel Sidney’s warmth. “Thanks,” Sidney says in the dark, serious but with a smile in his voice.

Geno reaches down to squeeze his wrist for a moment, letting it go and letting his hand drop onto Sidney’s chest over the covers. “Can stay, no problem for me, Sid,” Geno tells him quietly. “We have good night. I’m not mess it up and kick you out.”

“It was a really good night,” Sidney says just as quietly. “You made me forget why I even went out.”

“Good,” Geno says, smoothing out the covers over Sidney’s chest and then curling up more comfortably next to him. “Sleep good.”

“Goodnight, Geno.”

Geno’s afraid that it will be hard to fall asleep with someone else in his bed; it’s been a very long time. But he drifts off easily as Sidney’s breaths fall into a comforting, steady pattern, soft and sweet.

 

Sidney is awake and staring up at the ceiling when Geno rolls over and smacks him in the chest while he’s waking up. Geno apologizes to him in grumbly Russian and blinks his eyes open to search Sidney’s soft, thoughtful face. 

“You awake for long time?” He knows Sidney had slept some; Geno had gotten up thirsty a few hours ago and got them both drinks to leave on each side of the bed, chugging half of his Gatorade before settling down to sleep again. Sidney had been half-curled on his stomach, ass up and his arms stuffed under the pillow, his face slack and peaceful in sleep, snoring very gently. Geno fell back to sleep to the sound of those snores.

“No,” Sidney says in a near-whisper, his voice a little croaky. “Just a bit. I had to pee and I have a headache.” He looks kind of pouty, actually, and it’s cute enough that Geno smiles, though he feels a headache of his own pushing at the back of his eyes. 

He stretches languidly and decides he could feel worse; he doesn’t think that Sidney was that much drunker than he was. Geno wonders briefly if he _should_ feel worse than he does, if sleeping with a teammate is supposed to come with bigger consequences than a mildly puffy mouth and a bit of a hangover. He doesn’t know because he’s never slept with a teammate before, and he thinks idly about asking Sidney. 

“How you feel?” he asks neutrally, and Sidney twists his neck to look at him, giving him a small smile. He has pillow creases on his cheeks and his hair is sticking up, and Geno smiles helplessly back at him.

“Okay, besides the headache. No dick breath.”

Geno laughs and, not really taking a moment to think about it, leans in and kisses Sidney on the mouth. It’s sweet and soft and makes Sidney’s smile bigger, which is enough for Geno to examine the present lack of consequences some other time. “Yes,” Geno says, narrowing his eyes. “But sleep breath. Morning breath.”

Sidney laughs softly. “Good thing I have my own toothbrush.”

“Need _more_ toothpaste? Clean me out, Sid.”

“Next time I’ll bring my own,” Sidney tells him very earnestly, and Geno kisses his forehead and starts climbing out of bed. 

“You better.”

They bump into each other sleepily in the bathroom but mostly manage to navigate well enough. Sidney seems like he’s good at sharing spaces with other people, is practiced at it—he doesn’t hog room at the sink even though he’s there first and Geno could use one of the others and doesn’t mostly to be a jerkass. He moves out of Geno’s way easily and Geno feels comfortable stepping into the shower while Sidney’s puttering around the bathroom, talking to him over the spray of water. 

“You want breakfast?”

“Yeah,” Sidney calls over. He’s shaving, Geno thinks, because Geno lent him a packaged razor, feeling his pathetic hints of stubble when he’d sleepily kissed his cheek over the bathroom counter, not even thinking about it. “Breakfast would be good.”

“Nealer say we supposed to eat Mexican food,” Geno says, scrubbing his hair free of shampoo. He smiles at the grossed-out sound Sidney makes.

“That sounds disgusting right now.”

“Yes,” Geno says solemnly. He shuts off the water. “I can do eggs, bacon if you good.”

He steps out onto the bathmat and Sidney steps over, handing him a towel and smiling. His face looks scrubbed and young and Geno kisses the smooth skin of his cheek again, wide awake and thinking about it this time, toweling off and then wrapping the towel around his waist. “Eggs and bacon would be awesome,” Sidney says. Geno grins and waits for it as he walks away, grinning harder when it comes. “Thank you.”

“If you _good_ ,” Geno says, turning to watch Sidney step out of his borrowed clothes and get into the shower. Sidney just keeps smiling at him as he turns the water on. 

When Sidney comes downstairs in last night’s clothes and wet hair, Geno has bacon frying in one pan and eggs cooking in another. Geno shields the bacon from view and he feels Sidney’s warmth at his back, very close as he tries to lean up and peek over Geno’s shoulder. “No,” Geno says, laughing and trying to elbow Sidney away. “Go away, not for you.”

“I can smell the bacon, Geno,” Sidney says. He presses a soft kiss to Geno’s neck, almost hesitant, and when Geno squirms against it he hooks his chin over Geno’s shoulder and keeps it there, his arms folding gently around Geno’s waist. “I guess I’m good, eh?”

“All for me,” Geno tells him, jabbing the handle of his fork into Sidney’s belly and making him squeak.

“You shouldn’t use metal on nonstick,” Sidney says as Geno pokes at the eggs. Geno turns his head to give Sidney a very unimpressed look, narrowing his eyes.

“Now really all for me,” he says. “Tell me how to cook in my own kitchen, really Sid?”

“I’m just giving you advice, I’m not telling you what to do. Metal scratches the nonstick stuff and it gets in the food, d’you want to poison us?”

“What you mean us? This not for you.” He keeps the act going as he reaches for plates, shimmying out of Sidney’s hold to just grab one out of the cupboard and loading it up.

He lasts approximately thirty seconds doing that, though, because Sidney gives him big, wide eyes and says, “Geno,” with just a little bit of a whine in his voice, the kind Geno would mock in imitation on the ice at practice. Now, though, it makes him stop and have to force a sigh, to keep up the longsuffering act so the gooey feelings he actually has right now aren’t made embarrassingly apparent.

Eating breakfast together feels more normal, at least. They sit at Geno’s kitchen table and eat and mostly don’t do anything to suggest that things have changed after last night, though Geno is pretty sure that it’s undeniable that they have. He feels an itchy desire for Sidney that seems constant and slightly worrying, like a craving.

“Good?” Geno asks Sidney, telling himself he’d ask any new guest that. Sidney nods with his mouth full, cheeks puffed with toast like a chipmunk, and Geno smirks at him over his cup of tea. “Of course good. You lucky.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Sidney says, sipping at his own tea. His lips come away wet and he catches Geno looking at them, smiling at him. “So what’re you up to today?”

Geno looks at what’s left of his eggs and thinks about coming up with an interesting lie, something that makes him look good, but then decides he’s long past really trying to look good for Sidney off the ice. They’ve been friends for too long. “Nothing,” Geno says with conviction, finishing off his breakfast and chewing firmly to punctuate. “Stay here, be lazy all day.”

“That sounds great,” Sidney sighs, leaning back in his chair with his arm over his stomach.

“What you do?”

Sidney shrugs. “I don’t know. My social calendar’s kind of cleared out, you know.”

Geno scowls into his mug, giving Sidney another unimpressed look. “Thought I make you forget. Still sad?”

“You did make me forget, and it was great. It was—unexpected, but really great. But I’m gonna be sad for a while, I think. That’s just how it goes.” He makes a face and Geno thinks it’s mostly at himself, and somehow that’s more upsetting to him than anything else. He doesn’t think anybody is as hard on Sidney as he is on himself, and Geno never likes being reminded of that. “I don’t want to be sad, though.”

“I know, Sid,” Geno says softly, reaching over the table to squeeze Sidney’s hand with his own that’s warm from his mug. Sidney gives him a small smile, and then tilts his head to the side.

“Hey. Do you want to hang out today?”

“Hang out where?” Geno asks, skeptical. It’s not that he and Sidney never hang out, but hanging out for them usually involves going places, with other people, nothing like Geno is really up for today. 

Sidney gestures around. “Here. I’ll stay out of your way but it might be nice to just kick back with someone and not do anything for a while. And then maybe—” He hesitates, looking like he’s thinking very hard, before making eye contact and saying, “And maybe tonight we can, you know, again. If you want to.”

Geno goes quiet long enough that Sidney quickly repeats, “Only if you want to,” and it spurs Geno into working this out verbally instead of mentally for a bit, half feeling like he’s talking to himself and half talking to Sidney. 

“I’m not think—last night, we do once, yes? Not think we do again, not like that.”

“Right,” Sidney says, nodding firmly. Geno thinks he sees a hint of pink in his cheeks and doesn’t know how to feel about it. “You’re right, I’m sorry, that’s—that’s how it should be. Just once, it’s easier that way. Sorry, we don’t have to.”

Geno stays quiet, looking at Sidney some more until he looks away. Now the tips of Sidney’s ears are pink and it makes something in Geno’s chest feel very tender. What seemed like an awesome idea to last night’s drunk self still seems that way in the light of day, but now Geno is sober enough to be suspicious of that. He _should_ be overthinking this, should be considering that this is the most important professional relationship of his life right now and complicating it like this is incredibly risky. He wonders if Sidney is so sad and so afraid of being sad that he’s not even considering that, and knows that means he has to consider it for the both of them. 

He should accept the backtracking Sidney’s just given him and say that they shouldn’t, tell Sidney they’ll hang out another time the way they normally do. But Geno doesn’t want to do that. What he wants is to tell good sense to go fuck itself and to tell Sidney to stay, to risk it because right now the risk feels worth it. 

The want he feels is as sober as a judge and there’s no denying it. Geno’s a little annoyed that he’s the one that should have to, because he’s never been good at denying himself anything he really wants. 

He feels that mild annoyance when he says, “Stay. We hang out, relax, maybe—maybe do stuff later.”

The mild annoyance goes away completely when Sidney’s face lights up, even as he clearly forces himself to say, “Are you sure?”

Geno nods. “Sure. I—I don’t want you be sad,” he tells Sidney in all honesty. 

Sidney’s answering smile and next words seem just as honest, brutally so. “I’m not sad when I’m with you.” It makes Geno feel warm and a little shivery, and he smiles back at Sidney. 

They spend the rest of the day together. Sidney disappears for a bit to get his car from Brandon’s and Geno sets up his offday shop, settling into his favorite recliner with his favorite show and his laptop nearby for when he gets bored. Sidney comes back with his car full of stuff and sticks it in Geno’s garage, finding him in the media room after changing into the same kind of comfy clothes that Geno has on.

He has a book and two plastic bottles of sickly green juice, one of which he hands to Geno with a smile. “From Stan,” Sidney says. “He says we’re dicks for leaving him with Nealer but he still loves us anyway.”

Geno sniffs at the juice and then sips it cautiously as Sidney settles into another recliner, giving the Penguins logo a little rub and sticking his socked feet out on the footrest. Geno makes a face at him, raising his eyebrows at the juice. “Ugh. You sure he still love us?”

“It’s not so bad,” Sidney says, sipping his own and very nearly hiding the face he pulls in reaction. He continues valiantly drinking it, and Geno is reminded that Sidney once forced himself to drink a blended shake of beef tips, carrots and gravy because he was that hungry still on his liquid diet. He’s pretty sure he has an iron stomach and an iron will when it comes to being polite, even though Brandon’s not even here to see the politeness.

“Taste like dirt,” Geno proclaims, setting his aside and texting Brandon to tell him so. Sidney chokes and coughs in laughter, then goes back to drinking as if to assuage his guilt. He snaps a picture of Sidney determinedly chugging the rest and sends that, too, accusing _you make monster!_

_he was already made_ Brandon says, and then _have a fun buddies day!!!_ with a lot of smiling emojis. 

Geno sends back a fist emoji and then turns his show back on. He tries not to be overly aware of Sidney with his book, aware of the oddness of hanging like this in his home, not in a hotel room or by a pool in Florida.

But Sidney wasn’t lying when he’d said he’d stay out of Geno’s way. He’s quietly absorbed in his book and never disturbs Geno, no matter how many times Geno shoots looks over at him without meaning to. At one point, he looks up at Geno looking at him and smiles, but then he goes right back to his book, slumping a little more in the recliner like he’s totally boneless.

After a while, Geno takes that as a cue to relax, too, concentrating on his show instead of Sidney’s presence. And things are comfortable enough that he can do that pretty easily. It’s almost like he’s alone, but nicer. He knows he has the option of looking over at Sidney and talking to him if he wants to, but he doesn’t feel like he has to. 

He doesn’t look over again for any length of time until he sees Sidney put his book down and stretch in the recliner, blinking rapidly. “Good book?” Geno asks, pausing his show without making a thing of it, and Sidney nods and tells him a little bit about the plot, a sniper on a mission of some sort. It doesn’t fully interest Geno but he likes the interest in Sidney’s voice, the way it’s a bit soft around the edges and totally relaxed.

“How’s your show?” Sidney asks, nodding at the paused screen. 

“Sound bother you?”

“Nope. I just don’t know what they’re saying.”

“You want watch? Can put words on for you.”

Sidney seems to seriously think about it, then shrugs and nods. “Yeah, why not. Just an episode or two.”

“I think you like,” Geno says, though he honestly doesn’t know if Sidney would like it. All he knows about Sidney’s taste in television is that he likes home improvement and real estate shows, because Duper makes fun of him for it all the time, asking when he’s going to apply all that knowledge to his own house. “I _am_ ,” Sidney always whines, but here he is, sprawled out in one of Geno’s Penguin recliners. He wonders if Sidney’s house even has _any_ recliners and doesn’t think it does.

Sidney doesn’t make it through a whole episode, though, dropping into soft snores with his head tipped back in the chair. Geno smiles over at him, lowers the volume a little, and lets him nap. A nap doesn’t sound terrible to Geno either, so he dozes lazily until his stomach tells him it’s lunchtime.

He turns the show off and gets up and stretches, heading over to Sidney’s chair. Geno wakes him with a gentle shake of his shoulder, enjoying watching Sidney blink awake and, struck by the soft, sweet picture his sleepy face makes, he leans in and presses a kiss to his cheek. His heart pounds and Sidney smiles at him, kissing him back, and Geno can’t help feeling the surreality of everything again, disbelief that this is actually happening and that he likes it _so_ much.

“Hungry?” he asks Sidney, concentrating on what he can believe, things that make sense. He knows that Sidney is pretty much always hungry and the way he nods eagerly is familiar and comforting.

They eat leftovers for lunch, though Sidney sees the defrosted meat in his fridge, sticks his head out on the deck, and proclaims it warm enough to grill. Geno personally thinks he’s nuts—the Pittsburgh November has so far been cold and dank and either rainy or snowy, and though it’s only cloudy outside right now, that’s still not proper grilling weather.

“If it’s not snowing, it’s proper grilling weather,” Sidney tells him in his know-it-all voice, which is a little more annoying in the light of day, though still not as annoying as it probably should be. That’s worrying, so Geno keeps up the you-are-crazy faces he’s making at Sidney until he laughs into his reheated stew. “Watch, we’ll do it for dinner, it’ll be great.”

It’s weird to have to negotiate meals with someone else—normally, if Geno has people over, he tells them what they’re eating and they eat it and that’s how it goes. Sidney seems to have his mind made up, though, and it’s not like Geno dislikes grilling. He’s chuckling to himself imagining Sidney out in a rain slicker, flipping steaks under an umbrella while the wind threatens to blow him away. 

He kills the time between lunch and dinner by first talking to some people back home while Sidney returns to his book, and then napping. He doesn’t know what Sidney does while he naps, falls asleep imagining him puttering around Geno’s big house and poking at his grill so he has it figured out before he uses it, but finds he doesn’t really mind, as odd as the whole situation is. 

There are certain teammates he maybe would mind running loose around his house without supervision, but Sidney is far from one of them. And when Geno wakes up from his nap, he finds Sidney in the kitchen, a Red Wings pregame on the TV while Sidney hums to himself and prepares the meat. 

Geno opens his fridge and the sound makes Sidney jump slightly and turn. He stops humming and gives Geno a dorky sort of wave that makes Geno laugh and wave back, cracking open a bottle of Gatorade and sipping it while he leans against the counter.

“Almost ready, grill genius?”

“Ha ha,” Sidney says, turning back to the meat, the potatoes he must have found and stuffed into foil. “Yeah, it’ll be just a bit for these. You’re a rare guy, right?”

“I like when it moo,” Geno says with conviction, and Sidney nods firmly in approval. 

He watches Sidney load everything onto a platter and then take it outside onto the deck. Geno follows him, feels the chilly air on his bare arms, and steps back inside, closing the sliding door over.

Sidney turns and looks mildly outraged. “Oh come on, you big baby. It’s not that cold.”

“Door not locked,” Geno calls through the glass, grinning and waving. “Not let the heat out, though. I watch, you grill.”

“Baby,” Sidney says again, low enough that Geno has to lip read. Geno just gives him a big thumbs up through the glass and leaves him to it. He pulls out his phone to ask Nealer if cooking outside when the weather is shitty is a Canadian thing, and Nealer just texts back a lot of _hahaha_ ’s at first before adding _no it’s a sid thing._

Geno laughs to himself, shaking his head. Of course it’s a Sid thing. Duper tells him all the time that he underestimates just how crazy Sidney really is, that maybe they all don’t even realize the extent of it, and usually Geno thinks he’s just being a dick. But every once in a while he’s given evidence that supports Duper’s theory, and now it makes him look out at Sidney, watching the hem of his t-shirt flap around his waist in the wind.

He mostly ignores Nealer’s subsequent texts of _is sid still there??_ and _wtf_ and only deigns to answer when Nealer sends _can i come over???_ Geno sends back _no_ and slips his phone back into his pocket, heading back towards the kitchen to see if he has enough in his fridge to put together a decent salad.

He does, so he does, and by the time he’s done Sidney is at the sliding door again, tapping at it with his foot and holding the platter of steaks and potatoes. Geno grins and lets him back in, keeps grinning at where he can see Sidney’s nipples through his shirt and goosebumps on his arms. “Cold?”

“No,” Sidney says, and then he sees where Geno is looking and gives him the kind of smile Geno knows he doesn’t want to show, his lips pressed together like he can stop the smile that way. He can’t, and it’s as cute as it ever is, and Geno still can’t understand why he never thought it was this cute before.

Geno moves around Sidney as he sets the tray down on the counter and starts serving on the plates Geno put out. He runs his hands over Sidney’s upper arms, just under where the sleeves of his t-shirt hit, and rubs harder when he feels how chilled they are, shaking his head and muttering “Idiot.”

“Call me an idiot _after_ you’ve tasted the steak,” Sidney says, passing him a full plate and raising one eyebrow in challenge. “I got it perfect.”

Geno digs in standing up at the counter, and Sidney hops onto a stool and follows suit, eating like the food’s going to run off his plate like he always does. “Good salad,” he says with his mouth full, and then stares at Geno eating like he’s waiting for his own compliment.

The steak is great, seasoned well and cooked exactly like he likes it, but Geno doesn’t feel like telling Sidney that. “Eh,” he says after swallowing, and Sidney’s lips go pursed, his eyes sparkling.

“Food tastes better when you cook it outside. When you eat it outside, too, but you’re a baby so we can’t.” Geno snickers and reaches for the bottle of red wine he’d set out on a whim, passing it to Sidney and then grabbing two glasses. Sidney pours for them and then clinks their glasses together, like they’re at the bar again, and Geno rolls his eyes but takes a happy sip at the same time Sidney does. He feels warm, and he wants to crowd Sidney up against the counter until he feels warm, too. He keeps himself from it while he eats, allowing himself only fleeting looks at Sidney’s lips reddened by the wine, the pink of it that spreads across the highest parts of his cheeks. 

Sidney looks back at him enough that he’s aware of it, aware that he’s not alone in this, whatever it is, and it’s thrilling, comforting and a bit scary, too. Geno really doesn’t know what this is. 

He wonders if it’s time to maybe talk about that, to ask Sidney. But that doesn’t happen after dinner, when they fall into hockey talk until Sidney is yawning and rubbing his eyes and Geno is teasing him for being tired when he had done virtually nothing all day.

“Being lazy is hard work for me,” Sidney says, literally just to argue, this huge smile on his face. “And I cooked dinner. That’s more than you did.”

“Oh, I forget, yes. You cook out in the wild. Go out in the—the great outdoors.” He tries to say outdoors like Sid, mimicking his accent, and it doesn’t come out close to correct but Sidney laughs so hard it echoes in the kitchen, until Geno has to laugh too, folding himself over the counter and putting his head in his arms. 

The laughter peters out after a bit, sliding into another yawn from Sidney. “Bedtime I think,” Geno says softly, a little bit of a tease, mostly just fond. Sidney nods, his face soft, red from laughing and wine. Geno thinks he’s warmed up enough.

“Bed for you too?” Sidney asks, and Geno knows what he’s asking. He swallows hard, stomach jumping a little—he can put what they did today in a specific kind of box, still in the realm of teammates that hang out, especially if he ignores the few small kisses, the feel of Sidney pressed against his back in the morning. But if they go upstairs and do—more, together, almost totally sober now, that’s different. Geno doesn’t know what box to put that in, and he doesn’t know how long he can go just letting things happen because he wants them to.

But there’s still the fact that he wants them to, and the fact that there’s very little stopping him from stepping around the counter and pulling Sidney close enough to kiss is way too tempting. Geno answers Sidney that way, putting his hands on Sidney’s hips and leaning all the way down so Sidney can just stay steady and be kissed.

Sidney tilts his head up when Geno breaks the kiss gently. He looks a little dazed, like that could have possibly surprised him, and he blinks a few times before meeting Geno’s eyes. 

Geno wraps his fingers around one of Sidney’s wrists, stroking the soft skin on the inside of it and feeling his jump. He uses his grip to start walking Sidney towards the stairs, taking long enough strides that Sidney has to scramble to keep pace, giggling slightly into the back of Geno’s t-shirt.

“I’m glad—” Sidney says in the bedroom, and then he breaks off, swallowing hard, like he’s struck by not knowing what to say. Geno just pulls him close enough to kiss again, slipping his hands back around Sidney’s waist and fingering at his waistband, tugging it down far enough to know Sidney’s not wearing underwear under his sweats and hasn’t been all day.

Geno groans softly, sucks on Sidney’s bottom lip, and walks them backwards onto the bed. Sidney curls up on his chest and just keep kissing him thoroughly, until they’re breathless and hard.

They twist out of their clothes and Sidney pulls the unmade bed apart, slipping under the covers and grabbing for Geno to be close. Geno obliges readily, only pausing to grab lubricant out of the drawer in his bedside table, and settles in to kiss Sidney’s neck while he warms the tube in his hands.

“What do you want?” Sidney asks. His breathing is already rushed and though they’re under the covers, Geno is very aware of how naked they both are, the heat radiating off Sidney’s bare skin. They are touching all over, and Geno remembers last night, remembers not looking—tonight he lifts the sheet and looks all the way down Sidney’s body on top of him, letting his mouth fall open as he traces his skin greedily with his eyes.

“This good,” Geno says emphatically. Sidney laughs and shoves at him, kisses him hard on the mouth and then pries the lube out of his hand. He’d almost forgotten that he had it, but he lets Sidney take charge of it, popping the cap open and dripping some into the palm of his hand, before bringing it down between them to spread over Geno’s cock. 

Geno groans out harshly, head dropping back until he feels too tempted again, peeking under the sheets once more. His hands slide down Sidney’s back as Sidney works him steadily with his hand, looking at Geno’s face instead of his cock. Geno scratches gently down Sidney’s sides and cups his ass as best he can, bucking into Sidney’s fist, and Sidney gasps like he’s the one being stroked, working his hips so his own cock bumps clumsily into Geno’s hip.

Geno grabs the lube back and takes Sidney into a slick hand as soon as he can muster the coordination. He keeps one hand on Sidney’s ass to dip his fingers every so often between his cheeks, just teasing touches to test. 

The way Sidney moves into those touches is delicious, and it makes Geno want more, everything at once. But Sidney is focused and intense on getting Geno off like this, still watching him like he’s game tape, a play on the ice he wants to dissect. 

He twists his hand over the head of Geno’s dick, fingers cautiously at his foreskin with his thumb, and when Geno’s hips buck up, Sidney’s eyes light up. Geno wonders what he’s seeing, what kind of play he sees unfolding from here on out, and thinks that even though he’s quickly becoming overwhelmed with how good this feels, how good Sidney is for him, he wants to be in on the play, too.

Remembering how much Sidney had liked his mouth there, Geno cups Sidney’s balls and rolls them in his hand and Sidney’s strokes falter. He finally closes his eyes, eyelashes fluttering frantically, and he swallows so hard Geno has to lean up and lick at the bob of his Adam’s apple, bite it very lightly.

Sidney’s eyes fly open, and he stutters out, “Geno, I—I—” and starts stroking again, faster and stupidly good. Geno taps the fingers he has at the crease of Sidney’s ass, rubs at his perineum and Sidney groans then, ducking his head. “Geno, please.”

“What do you want?” Geno murmurs, echoing Sidney from before. Sidney blinks a few times in quick succession and raises his head like it’s heavy. He’s pushing his cock into the circle of Geno’s fist and pushing back into his hand at his ass, and still stroking Geno enough that he feels his balls getting tight. Geno thanks whatever power granted Sidney this coordination, and thanks that power that he gets to benefit from it. 

Sidney swallows hard again, and he breathes out harshly, nostrils flaring, before he looks at Geno once more. “You first,” he says, his voice firm and determined, and Geno’s too far gone to laugh but he wants to.

“Not a contest.”

“Still,” Sidney breathes out, working his hand up and down in a steady rhythm, like he can’t help falling into one. “Come on, that’s what I want, I want to make you come.”

“I want too,” Geno says. He strokes his fingers over Sidney’s hole at the same he thumbs just under the swollen head of his cock, and Sidney shakes all over. “I get. Gonna make you come first.”

“Nope.” Geno can _see_ that Sidney is holding back, now twisting more than thrusting against Geno’s hands but still shaking. His thighs are tense but his eyes aren’t lost and hazy yet, still zeroed in. “ _You_ first.”

“Sid,” Geno huffs, but Sidney mostly ignores him to lean down and kiss him wetly, mouth sloppy but so firm, aggressive in licking into Geno’s mouth. He shifts back up and looks at Geno almost thoughtfully, then shifts back down again in an instant, curling his body up even more so his ass is in the air with Geno’s hand clinging to it, and his mouth is hot over Geno’s chest.

He kisses and licks at one of Geno’s nipples and Geno shouts at the sensation, heat flaring through his gut. He’s surprised at Sidney doing it and surprised at how good it feels, and he can feel Sidney smiling against his skin, before he bites down, thumbs at the head of Geno’s cock, and very gently teases the slit of it with the pad of his thumb.

Geno comes, feeling it hit him like a freight train. His grip on Sidney loosens and Sidney relaxes slightly against him, kissing Geno gently on the forehead while he shivers through his orgasm. He’s still shivering when he feels Sidney smiling again, warm and smug against his hairline, and he gathers just enough rational thought to tighten his hand around Sidney’s cock, to edge the very tip of his thumb dry into Sidney’s hole, and tells him in no uncertain Russian terms to come, now.

It’s gratifying that Sidney does, making a low whimpering noise and burying his face in Geno’s neck as he tenses up all over. Geno holds him through it, murmuring nonsense in his ear until Sidney quiets down and stops shaking.

Sidney’s collapsed over him, touching all over again, and it’s almost too much—Geno feels tingly and sensitive but doesn’t want Sidney to move for anything. For his part, Sidney stays right where he is, mouth working weakly against the skin of Geno’s neck like he wants to suck there for a comfort. Geno thinks he would let him, he’d let him do anything right now—he feels so fucking good and just wants to stay feeling this good, Sidney right there with him.

But Sidney’s head pops up eventually, and he’s somehow dazed _and_ smug. Geno can’t help beaming at him, feeling stupid and wonderful. “You first,” Sidney says again, and Geno breaks into snickers, nodding and wiping Sidney’s sweaty hair away from his forehead. 

“Yes. You win. What you win?”

Sidney seems to think about it, letting his head drop down to rest at Geno’s shoulder. “Can I stay the night?” he asks eventually, his voice kind of small, and Geno starts—he hadn’t even imagined that Sidney would leave, even though he realizes they’d never worked that out explicitly and it’s yet another instance of going against his norm, another way this is a different situation. 

It just seems like a given that Sidney will stay now, and Geno doesn’t know if that’s because of the really, really nice day they had together, or the fantastic sex that made him feel a little dopey. But he holds Sidney close, squeezing his arms around him, and says, “Of course stay.” His voice is a little croaky, and he chalks that up to being come-drunk.

Sidney looks up at him, eyes wide, and Geno has to whisper, “Stay,” again and squeeze him one more time.

“Okay,” Sidney says, pillowing his face on Geno’s shoulder again, snuggling in slightly. Geno feels him relax, and strokes at his back, watching the curves of him rise and fall under the sheet.

 

The next day is a game day, which means that it’s nothing like the one before. Sidney has his own routines and Geno has his. He watches for Sidney’s first, is out of bed before him and heading for the shower when he sees Sidney getting out of bed, right foot on the floor first, breathing deep and steady.

They’re mostly apart but companionable, using different counters in the bathroom this time, eating different breakfasts at the same kitchen table. Geno can’t imagine he has all the things that Sidney needs for a game day, but none of it turns out to be a problem because Sidney just ducks out and grabs things from his car, and Geno remembers that he has all those boxes still in there, what seems like half of his life shoved into his trunk, only stationary while it’s parked in Geno’s garage.

He suggests that they just take his car into morning skate, and Sidney looks startled at first. “Come back here for nap,” Geno says, because it just seems easier and also—nice, he thinks.

Sidney’s face softens, and he looks really happy when he says, “Yeah, that’s. Okay, that’s a good idea.”

Nisky sees them getting out of Geno’s car at Consol and does an exaggerated double-take. “This is new,” he says, falling into step beside them. “Does your ass even fit in that car, Sid?”

Sidney laughs, shaking his head ruefully. “It’s a tight squeeze, but yeah, I made it work.”

Geno doesn’t know whether to defend the size of his car or heckle the size of Sidney’s ass, but Sidney’s already changing the subject, asking about the new frozen yogurt place Nisky had wanted to try. He’s very aware of how odd this looks and only cares marginally, but he understands why Sidney doesn’t want to open it up to being a huge thing with the team.

That gets a little shaky when Duper greets them in the dressing room and says to Sidney, “Oh good, so you are alive.” He looks like he smells blood in the water and Sidney already looks cornered and a bit defensive.

Geno leaves them to it, clapping Sidney on the back and grinning at him when he shoots him a betrayed look. 

He hears Sidney and Duper bickering throughout changing for their morning skate, Kuni constantly interrupting his own changing routine to go over and mediate. Nealer is mostly pouting about being left out yesterday so he leaves Geno alone, and on the ice Brandon bumps him from behind and just says, “Good buddies day?”

“Okay,” Geno says, shrugging. “Just relax, hang out. Drink horrible juice.”

“My juices are fucking terrific and you know it,” Brandon says with a completely straight face. 

“Can’t just put everything from kitchen in machine and call juice, Stanley,” Geno tells him gravely. “You poison yourself someday, and Sid too because he’s idiot.”

Brandon breaks then, laughing so hard that Sidney looks over at them, smiling until Tony calls them in to run through their powerplay. 

There are a handful of guys that like to kill time for a bit between morning skate and their game, and Sidney is one of them, eating lunch with everyone else and getting loose and relaxed. Geno usually goes off on his own, preferring the solitude until he joins the team for Two-Touch closer to warmups, but when Sidney hesitates to follow Bort into the kitchen and looks at Geno questioningly, Geno puts a hand at the small of his back and pushes him into moving again.

“Go. S’okay.”

“You sure?” Sidney checks, and Geno nods, poking him gently in the back and then bringing his hand away.

“Yes. Can deal with Penguins little bit longer, go get me omelet with ham and cheddar and peppers.”

“Okay,” Sidney says happily, and he cuts in front of Bort to get ahead of him. 

Geno joins Nealer at a table where he’s shoving a sandwich in his mouth almost whole, giving Beau instructions for whatever game he’s playing on his phone. “Eat, Sunshine,” Geno says firmly, nudging at his untouched sandwich. “You too skinny. Weak.”

Beau narrows his eyes at Geno but dutifully puts down his phone and picks up his sandwich. Geno gives him an approving nod and then turns to see if Nealer is over his pouting yet.

He is, predictably, looking cheerful enough when he demands to know, “So what did you guys _do_ all day?”

Geno sighs and silently wishes Nealer would go back to pouting. “Just hang out. Watch TV. Grill steaks in hurricane.”

“Only that last part sounds like Sid to me,” Nealer says, looking very thoughtful. “Weird. He didn’t make you go to the mall with him?”

“Nealsy, he only take you to mall so he can lose you in food court and leave,” Geno says tiredly. Beau cracks up and Nealer makes inarticulate outraged noises, eyes comically wide.

“Once! That happened _one time_ , it’s not like a thing, ugh, you’re such a jerk!”

“He really is,” Sidney says, joining them with two plates and putting one down in front of Geno. Geno looks and notes with a smile that it’s exactly what he’d asked for. “He’s a huge jerk. Eat up, Beau, you’re not gonna get protein from your phone.”

Beau now looks incredulously between them, mouthing _wow_ while Geno just raises his eyebrows at him and shrugs until he puts his phone down again. Bort joins them with his food and it’s crowded enough that Geno wonders if this is the group that Sidney usually eats with, or if he’d adjusted for Geno, and tries not to get too caught up in the thought of Sidney adjusting on a game day just because of him.

Nealer looks deep in thought as he finishes his sandwich, frowning slightly between bites and throwing looks between Geno and Sidney. Sidney is oblivious, asking Bort what he got in his omelet and judging all of his choices, and Geno is confident enough in Nealer’s cluelessness that nothing’s going to come of the looks he keeps sending their way. So he eats his lunch and enjoys the company, something he’s rapidly getting used to in a way he never has before. 

When they’re finished eating, neither make a big thing of leaving together. There are enough guys still lingering around, chatting away, that they can make a fairly inconspicuous exit, and in the parking garage only Olli sees them, looking surprised and a little flustered.

“Oh,” he says, giving them a wave. “Um, hey, I have to stop by that tailor that Paulie told me about, but I can’t remember—and he left already—do you know—”

“Follow us, Olli,” Sidney says kindly, and Olli sags in relief.

“Thanks, wow. I’m sorry, I won’t keep you from your naps too long, I just—”

“You learn Pittsburgh soon,” Geno tells him, popping open the driver’s side of his car. “It get easy when you here for long time.”

Sidney snorts. “Don’t pretend that you don’t still get lost, G.” They both get in the car and hear Olli chuckling by his, and they sit in the car waiting for him to be ready before Geno starts pulling out. 

“I’m great navigator,” Geno says, just to make a point. Sidney snorts again.

“Do you even know where we’re going?”

“ _Yes._ ” He has no idea, but he surreptitiously texts Paulie for the address until Sidney sees and yells at him for texting while driving. Then he starts telling Geno where to go, and Geno is stuck between not listening to him and getting lost and doing what he says to prove he knows what he’s doing.

He compromises, blithely ignoring Sidney’s shortcut suggestions and taking the long way because he knows it’ll get them there. It takes Sidney approximately five minutes of that to start bitching, though he knows he’s being messed with because he sounds fond and a little pleased in spite of himself, and that makes Geno grin hard, staring straight ahead. 

“You know I need at least 90 minutes to nap,” Sidney says. “You gotta hurry.”

“You the one who volunteer us for rookie tour guide, I’m not rescue Olli.”

“Come on, we can’t keep letting him get lost. Did you hear about when Nisky invited him to his house for dinner, and when he never showed they found him three blocks over, going around in a dead end over and over?”

Geno snickers, shaking his head. “Yes. Nealer say he hit mailbox.”

“He didn’t hit a mailbox,” Sidney says. He laughs too, though. “Tishy said he blocked traffic for half an hour once, to help let turtles cross the road.”

“Only right thing to do,” Geno says firmly, looking up into the rearview at Olli’s car behind them and smiling proudly. 

They leave Olli at the tailor after making sure that he’ll be okay finding his way home again, and Geno concedes the point and takes Sidney’s complicated shortcut directions. They make it home with plenty of time for Sidney’s 90 minutes, and Geno saves even more time by shuffling Sidney straight up to his bedroom, checking in with him only once they’ve crossed the threshold. 

“Bed okay for nap?”

“Yeah,” Sidney says, pulling off his socks and dumping them in a fairly neat pile in a duffel bag that Geno realizes contains more of Sidney’s dirty clothes. He thinks about it for a second, then picks up the duffel and dumps it into the hamper that holds his own laundry, stepping back out of the closet to see Sidney in bed and smiling at him. “Your bed is really comfortable,” he tells Geno, almost shy.

Geno grins and climbs under the covers, settling down as Sidney does the same. “Good,” he says, and he’s never had a game day nap with anyone, not any girlfriends or any other teammates, but he’s suddenly delighted by the thought. “Sleep good.”

“See you in 90 minutes,” Sidney says, squeezing Geno’s hip and then going mostly lax. Geno drifts off easily, too happy to marvel at how easy it feels, and how nice Sidney’s breaths sound as they go steady and even. 

His last conscious thought is that he could get used to this.

It must be that thought that spurs him to say, “Come home with me again,” later that night, high off a decisive win against Nashville. They’re flying out to Jersey the very next morning for another game, and Geno wants another night of Sidney in his bed, wants Sidney to know that he wants it.

He asks low and very solemn, just for Sidney to hear when they’re heading for their cars again. They had driven in separately, Sidney still carting all of his stuff around like he’s on a wagon trail, and Geno just—he knows how different this is, knows that this is a dramatic change that they should probably be thinking and talking about. But he doesn’t really care. Whether it’s for sex again, making this into a sex kind of thing, or just for sleeping, making into possibly a weird kind of thing, Geno doesn’t care.

All he really cares about is how bright Sidney’s eyes are when he says, “Yeah, okay.”

 

 

It takes about two weeks for the contents of Sidney’s car to empty completely into Geno’s house. Actually, it could’ve been faster than that, but it takes at least two weeks for Geno to notice.

He thinks it’s because Sidney’s so polite about taking up space. While it’s hard not to notice that Sidney comes and goes but is always in Geno’s house to sleep and oftentimes to eat, Geno has to look for signs that Sidney might actually be living here.

The signs crop up in small ways: Sidney’s food starts appearing in the fridge, his favorite snacks in the pantry. Geno always stumbles upon them, blinks until he realizes he’s smiling stupidly, and adds mini Reese’s to the grocery list he leaves for his housekeeper. He develops a taste for chocolate almond milk because of Sidney and adds that, too.

Sidney’s laptop starts appearing where Geno’s does, and Geno starts spotting various books around the house, left on a table or one of the recliners. Their laundry gets mixed, which Geno knows is his fault but still does weird things to his stomach when he finds Sidney’s clothes folded next to his in his closet, and Sidney has a neat toiletry case he keeps on the bathroom counter, travel-sized shampoo and body wash that he always carries into the shower.

“You on vacation?” Geno asks him once, pointing out the little bottle of shampoo while they shave side by side. Sidney flushes all down his neck, visible in the squares of skin he’s uncovering from shaving cream and stubble. It’s ridiculously cute.

“No, just—easier to carry around, that’s all.”

“Good for road trips,” Geno says, nodding. “But not for—” and he breaks off because he almost called this home, and is it home for Sidney? Geno’s not entirely sure. And he’s aware that he should be sure, that this is his house and he should know who lives in it. But he’s also aware that he maybe wouldn’t mind if this were Sidney’s home, and that’s—he’s not sure what to do with that. That’s crazy. 

So he lets it lie for now, and they go back to shaving, Sidney’s eyes darting in the mirror. He keeps looking at Geno like he thinks Geno’s mad at him, and Geno doesn’t know what to say to change that—Sidney makes them blueberry waffles using the waffle iron Geno had never taken out of the box, how could he be mad at him?—so he makes a stop at a Target one day and grabs the biggest bottles of Sidney’s brands of shampoo and body wash that they have.

He leaves them in the shower for Sidney to find and is greeted first thing at breakfast by Sidney smiling crookedly at him, hair damp and curling when he leans in to kiss Geno sweetly on the cheek. Geno almost lets him get away with just that but hauls him in at the last second, kissing him on the mouth and breathing him in.

He’s maybe not reacting correctly to Sidney moving into his house without actually telling him. But it’s not like Geno hadn’t been inviting Sidney to stay in the beginning, and he can blame it all he wants on the sex they’re still having, but—it’s not just that. They don’t talk about it but it’s really not just that.

Right now, it’s missing Sidney a little when they’re on the road and not sleeping together, and feeling completely ridiculous about it. It’s watching him grill outside in increasingly cold weather, probably to prove a ridiculous point that Geno doesn’t really care about. 

It’s a lot of sex, more sex than Geno has had with any one man, and that alone is something more, something new and a bit strange but really, really enjoyable, in its own little bubble. Sometimes just making out with Sidney is enough to take him back to that first night, to make him feel drunk and wild again without a drop of alcohol in him, and Sidney is vocal and active in showing him he feels the same way. 

And most of all it’s going really, really well, well enough that Geno’s not going to ask questions, not going to poke at it. He thinks the fact that it’s going so well is because of a combination of factors: the Penguins have been stringing some wins together, Geno has been underrating regular sex for a while and discovers this now that he’s having it, and he and Sidney get along better than either of them had ever even thought. 

They spend the day in Montreal together, heading over to a tailor on Papineau that Tanger recommended to them. By now no one on the team really blinks at them doing things together, with other people or not, and that’s the surest sign of the change in their relationship. Sidney had told everybody they’re carpooling to practice and only Duper had asked any questions, because he’s Duper. Now it’s not odd to just spend time with Sidney, and Geno hopes that, no matter how this thing ends, that never changes back again.

Sidney is excited about the tailor, because no matter how much Tanger groans at him about the things he wears, he really does like buying clothes. Geno is excited because he likes Montreal and he likes clothes and he likes Sidney.

He ducks his head and smiles when they walk into the shop and Sidney answers the customary “ _Bonjour_ -hi!” in soft, stilted French. The woman at the counter smiles, too, and talks to Sidney in gentle English, and Geno swallows down the snicker threatening to shudder out of him. 

They don’t get fitted together, but Sidney keeps poking his head around the divider to ask Geno’s opinion, so Geno does the same, and it all takes longer than the appointment time they’d booked, but nobody really minds. They’re known in here and treated with protectively professional courtesy, and that only breaks when Sidney mentions something about the game and gets stuck with a pin accidentally on purpose.

“Go Habs, huh?” Geno hears him say sulkily, and he can’t help snickering then. 

They get lunch with Tanger and Flower, and Geno considers himself lucky he’s even invited along—he’d been expecting to lose Sidney to them like they always do in Montreal. He’s kind of wary of an ambush, thinking that being left alone about the carpooling or the secretly living together couldn’t go on for too much longer, but Tanger just wants to know all about their experience at the tailor, like he’s writing notes to post a review on the internet. 

“Seeing lots of you lately,” Flower says to Geno. It’s not exactly private, but Sidney and Tanger are debating the usefulness of pocket squares and only paying half attention, so Geno answers on his own.

“Sorry, too bad for you.”

“I think it’s good,” Flower tells him, smiling one of his blinding smiles before toning it down and making his face go softer. “I get sad thinking about you alone all the time.”

“I’m with _you_ people all the time,” Geno says, rolling his eyes. Flower makes it sound like he’s a hermit, and while he doesn’t hang out with his teammates with as much regularity as Sidney does, it’s not unheard of. If it were, he and Sidney wouldn’t even be in this situation right now. 

“You know that I mean away from the rink. It’s good for you. I’m saying good things, G.”

“Never say good things,” Geno says darkly. Flower does his best evil cackle and drops whatever uncomfortably kind point he’d been driving at, and the rest of lunch passes pleasantly.

After they all nap at their hotel and start to head to the Bell Centre, Geno stops Sidney in the hallway with Flower’s words in mind, having letting them sink as he fell asleep. “Thanks,” he tells Sidney, and Sidney frowns and cocks his head to the side. “It was good day, fun with you.”

Because he doesn’t do regular lunches with the French Canadians like Sid does, or go for burritos with anybody like Beau and Bort. Nobody cooks him breakfast like Paulie does for Nealer and while he goes out with them, while he loves his team, he only has instances that are notable, nothing ordinary or regular. 

But now he kind of does, and it was mostly an accident, but it’s been really good, Flower was right about that. And Sidney’s mostly to blame, so—“ _Thanks_ ,” Geno repeats intently, and Sidney just smiles at him like he thinks he’s being weird.

“Uh, no problem. I didn’t do anything? Montreal is just awesome.” He gets them walking down the hall again, looking thoughtful until he turns to Geno and says, “Thanks for coming, Geno.”

“Welcome,” Geno says, smiling and shaking his head. 

The day stops being a good one after that, though. It leads into an infuriating, frustrating loss at the Bell Centre that has them all vibrating in ineffectual rage afterwards. Sidney is stormy and grumbly in his fury on the plane ride home, ranting to Tanger over the aisle while Flower ignores them and Nealer hangs on every word. 

Geno is only half-listening, kind of dreading being around Sidney later, for the first time since they’d started this. He almost wishes they hadn’t nearly come back, because it had been a tease that eventually fell short and made the loss all the more frustrating. He’s not unhappy with his effort, but he knows that Sidney is unhappy with his own and knows that he’s not going to let it go for himself, and he _is_ unhappy that the day was spoiled and he can’t just put it away yet.

He doesn’t like these games to follow him home, and he knows it’s going to in the ball of pissed-off frustration that is Sidney right now. He’s telling Tanger, “Yeah, and it’s hard to get anything going when fucking Plekanec is on top of me every shift and Subban is making me his—” and Nealer interrupts by saying “Humblebrag,” through an exaggerated cough.

“Shut the fuck _up_ , Nealer!” Sidney bursts out. “That doesn’t even make _sense._ ” He’s not laughing, though Tanger is a little bit and Nealer’s eyes are sparkling behind his glasses. Geno groans softly to himself and leans his head against the window, wondering if he can ditch Sidney at the airport just for the night and pick him up in the morning. 

He can’t, though, and at the very least, Sidney is quiet on the car ride home. Geno tries to swallow all of his own frustration, the dread that Sidney is going to burst out with more criticism of himself, the kind that Geno doesn’t want to tolerate tonight. He’s never been good at listening to Sidney rail on himself and he doesn’t think the recent developments in their relationship are going to make him any better. 

When they get home, Geno drops his bag in the front hallway and leaves it there, stomping his shoes off and kicking them towards the rest of the shoes. He hears Sidney following suit and when he turns to head for the kitchen, he looks back and sees Sidney arranging the shoes more neatly and then picking up Geno’s bag.

“Leave it,” Geno says, gritting his teeth. This is something they’ve bickered about, Sidney picking up after him. He does it incessantly, following him around the kitchen and putting things away before Geno can get to them, or picking up the clothes Geno always leaves balled up on the floor of his closet. It’s mostly mildly annoying, something he gets over quickly enough, but he’s not in the mood for it tonight.

As always, Sidney looks surprised at Geno telling him not to put something away. “It’s not that heavy,” he says, which isn’t the point, Geno can put his own shit away if he wants to, he just doesn’t want to. “Someone could trip.”

“Who trip, Sid? Who come here besides me and you? Leave it, I want there.”

Sidney huffs and keeps walking with both bags in hand, heading for the stairway. “Don’t be dumb, why the hell would you want—”

“Because I want!” Geno snaps, louder than he’d really meant. Sidney looks surprised again, and he drops the bag with a heavy thump, staring at Geno with wide eyes that only get wider when Geno adds, “Is my house, can leave there if I want.”

He watches Sidney swallow hard and look down, and then nod stiffly. “Yeah, you’re right. I’m—sorry, Geno.” That somehow annoys Geno more, and it’s totally irrational, but Sidney shouldn’t be sorry for Geno being ridiculous, just like he shouldn’t be so furious with himself for getting ridden hard by Subban all night. 

“Should eat,” Geno says so he doesn’t say anything else really stupid or nasty or uncalled for. He heads for the kitchen and only starts to feel guilty when Sidney doesn’t follow him. 

By the time he’s put a sandwich and a water bottle away, he’s feeling better enough that the guilt is full-blown and gnawing at his stomach, and he’s too tired to be annoyed anymore. Geno knows that his annoyance was irrational to begin with and that just makes him feel worse.

He takes a few deep breaths and then goes looking for Sidney, finding him still fully dressed in the sitting room with his own bag next to him on the sofa. He looks up and then looks away quickly when Geno comes into the room, and before Geno can say anything, he asks him, “Should I go?”

“No!” Geno says, fiercer than he’d intended but ultimately glad for it. “No. I’m jerk, I’m—mad about the game. Take it out on you, I’m stupid.”

“I’m sorry,” Sidney says again. Geno sucks in a huge breath to tell him how he shouldn’t be but Sidney keeps going, all in a rush. “You and Nealer gave us a chance to win and I couldn’t—”

“ _No_ ,” Geno says again. “Shut up. This why I’m mad. Just one game, you keep think and obsess and kill yourself with it. Shouldn’t carry it so much. Should believe own words.” Sidney had told reporters that they’d battled hard, that they had done good things, and Geno knew he didn’t mean a word of it personally because he hadn’t put up points and had been shut down so effectively. “Too hard on yourself,” Geno tells him seriously, and Sidney gives him a rueful smile.

“That’s kind of hypocritical coming from you. You’re just as hard on yourself.” He purses his lips in a frown, then shrugs and adds, “And okay, it drives me nuts. You’re never as bad as you make yourself out to be, you know.”

“You too,” Geno says, dropping down onto the couch and kissing Sidney’s forehead gently. “It’s good, though. We good for each other, good for egos. Good team.”

“Great team,” Sidney says. He lets his head tilt against the back of the couch and gives Geno a steadier smile. “I won’t put your stuff away anymore. I know that really bugs you.”

“Won’t leave my stuff around when you around,” Geno tells him, leaning in so their foreheads touch. “Take temptation away. But you still do what I say.”

“It’s your house,” Sidney says, and Geno can’t quite make the words _it’s yours too_ come out, at least not yet, so he kisses Sidney’s on the mouth instead, swallowing the impulse.

“I say, go upstairs, take bath,” Geno says. “Relax, stop think. And you do what I say.” 

“Only if you come with me,” Sidney says. Geno kisses him again in agreement.

 

 

After Montreal and an equally frustrating loss in Boston, the team starts putting together enough wins that Geno hopes they’re finally finding their consistency, amidst the injuries that keep cropping up. It’s disappointing to be sidelined by a stinger he takes on his foot during morning skate, halted in his own mounting production, but he agrees with the trainers that it’s better to rest now and avoid bigger problems later.

It means he watches the Penguins’ fifth straight win from the press box, cheering on Kuni’s two goals and Sidney’s three point night, and that’s fine. But it also means he’s home when the Penguins go back to Boston and lose a heartbreaker in the final minutes, following a mess on the ice between Nealer, Marchand, Thornton and Brooksie.

Geno waits up for Sidney, aching with worry and helplessness, and when Sidney comes in he looks exhausted instead of angry, which worries him even more. “How’s Brooksie?” he asks quietly when Sidney drops onto the couch next to him heavily.

“He has a concussion,” Sidney says. “You know the drill, we won’t know anything for a bit. He told me not to worry, though.”

“Of course,” Geno says, snorting. “Brooksie say that to you even if his arm fall off in front of you. He think you are kid.”

“I kind of felt like—” Sidney starts, and then he sighs and leans in closer to Geno, just barely touching. Neither of them are much for cuddling normally unless there’s a specific need, and it’s usually Sidney who decides that there’s a need, wrapping his arms around Geno from behind when he’s talked to his mother just a bit too long to be completely devoid of homesickness. 

But Geno makes the decision for them this time, tugging Sidney in close and throwing an arm over his shoulder. Sidney’s head drops to Geno’s shoulder automatically, like he’d just been waiting for the invitation, and he sighs again, softer this time. “It was really fucked, Geno,” he says quietly, and Geno nods and kisses his hair.

“I know. Was fucked to watch here, can’t imagine what it’s like from the bench. Sorry I’m not there.”

Sidney shakes his head. “No, don’t be. You’re getting better, that’s what we need from you. _I_ should’ve—”

“No, _you_ don’t be,” Geno says firmly. “What can you do about Thornton? Don’t be stupid.”

“Not that. Not Thornton. Did you see Smith’s goal? I just let it happen, it was just so fast I—”

“No,” Geno says again. “We talk about this. You not do this now, with me, because I just argue with you. You do with Tanger in the video room, watch over and over, because he tell you you suck.”

Sidney quiets, and Geno is shocked and delighted when he gives a small giggle. “Tanger doesn’t tell me I suck,” he says, looking up at Geno with narrowed eyes.

Geno smiles at him. “Okay, maybe he not say to you, but he tell me all the time, Crosby suck, and he tell Kadar and Olli and—”

“You’re so full of shit,” Sidney says, giggling again and elbowing Geno lightly in the ribs. The movement is slow and weak, probably not by design but from the exhaustion Geno feels bleeding through Sidney’s skin. He just holds him tighter instead of retaliating, waiting for Sidney to settle against him again.

He strokes his thumb across the soft skin visible beneath Sidney’s open collar, listening to his breathing ease and his anxiety fall to a gentle hum instead of the frenzied buzzing he’s felt since he got home. Sidney’s eyes close and Geno kisses his hair again, and with his eyes still closed Sidney murmurs, “Sometimes I need someone to tell me I suck, you know.”

Geno can’t ignore the softball there, grinning into Sidney’s hair. “I’m tell you what to suck, don’t worry.”

“ _Geno._ ”

“Can’t do that for you, Sid. Why you need talk to Tanger. I think you perfect, always best, won’t change my mind. You never backcheck again and I’m still think you best.”

Sidney looks up at him again, frowning a little. “Is that because we’re having sex?”

Geno thinks about it, but shakes his head. “No. I’m always think.”

Sidney keeps looking at him, now like he thinks Geno’s totally crazy, before his face softens and he starts shifting around in Geno’s arms. “Well, since you put the idea out there,” Sidney says, squirming to get at the drawstring of Geno’s sweats and untying it with fumbling fingers.

“Sidney!” Geno says, tossing his head back to laugh as Sidney tries to pull his sweats down. “Not even hard, sheesh, not even make out first?”

“I’ll get you there,” Sidney tells him, and the simple, focused promise in his voice is more than enough to get his cock to stir. It’s helped along by the pout Sidney levels him with. “You always want to make out first.”

“So? I like.” He feels a weird worry suddenly crop up in his stomach. “You don’t like?”

“I like—I like it! You’re good at it. But I’m better at this.” Geno has to laugh again, hard and deep from his belly as Sidney moves to bend over his lap.

He cups Sidney’s face in his hands and brings him up to smack a kiss on his mouth, grinning hard at his crabby look. “Of course,” Geno says, rubbing his thumbs over Sidney’s cheekbones. “Always competition.”

“Are you really going to complain right now?” Sidney asks, a decent amount of whining in his voice. Geno releases his face and runs his fingers through his hair, sighing as he pulls Geno out and successfully bends over his lap.

“No complain. Yes, Crosby suck, o-okay.” Geno tips his head back and closes his eyes as Sidney takes his cock in his mouth, half-hard and quickly swelling on Sidney’s tongue. 

He doesn’t open his eyes again until he comes, concentrating instead on the slick, warm feel of Sidney’s determined mouth on him, and the sounds he’s making around his cock, wet and happy. Geno forces his bleary eyes open to take in Sidney still in most of his game day suit, one of the ones they’d gotten together in Montreal, rumpled and smug as he wipes his mouth on the back of his hand. 

“You best at that,” Geno tells him, pulling Sidney in close again with weak, heavy arms. “No question. Never backcheck again, just do that.”

Sidney giggles into his neck, kissing him there. “I’m not sure that’s an effective alternative to backchecking, but if you say so.”

“I say so. Now I say—I’m take you upstairs, put you on the bed, show you what _I’m_ best at.”

“D’you think you can make me come just making out?” Sidney asks, and that hadn’t been what Geno meant, but now he’s thinking of it: fucking his tongue into Sidney’s mouth while he squirms against Geno’s thigh, writhing under him and begging him for more until whatever Geno gives him is exactly enough. 

Sidney sounds like he’s thinking about it too, squirming already, and that gives Geno his emphatic answer. “Yes. Come, I prove it.” 

“I like your chances,” Sidney says, letting Geno pull him up and tow him upstairs. 

 

 

Geno’s phone wakes him up the next morning, and not because he’d set an alarm. Practice today was called off, and though Geno is planning on going in later to skate some with Kadar and get his foot checked, he is determined to make sure Sidney sleeps.

He answers his phone without really thinking about it, just to get it to shut up quickly so it doesn’t disturb Sidney snoring on his stomach next to him. “Yes?” he whispers roughly, scrubbing his hand over his face, and he suppresses a groan when he hears Brandon’s voice. 

“Hey G. Uh, this is a longshot, but do you know where Sid is?”

Geno looks down at where Sidney is sleeping next to him, his face lax and painfully young. He was out like a light within minutes of coming last night, and Geno had cleaned him up gently and rolled him under the covers to be comfortable and warm.

“Why?” he demands, a little harsher than he’d meant to, but—he knows Sidney will go to the rink with him later, will find Tanger so they can shut themselves up in the video room and torture themselves with review. He wants Sidney to have some time where he’s just resting, just for Geno, before he belongs to the team again.

“I dropped by Mario’s to see if he wanted to get breakfast with me, thought I’d cheer him up, but he’s not here? And Mario says he hasn’t been here except to visit for weeks, so, uh. Do you know what’s up with that?”

He can’t tell if Brandon knows or if he’s genuinely clueless, asking Geno because of the carpooling. His mind races, trying to decide whether to just outright lie or not, when suddenly Sidney makes the choice for him, curling up tighter into his pillow and mumbling, “G? Time’s it?” 

Geno curses silently, and Brandon is just as tellingly silent on the phone. He starts counting to ten mentally, cutting off at seven when Sidney starts to lift his head and blink. “Shh, go back sleep. Very early.” 

He puts his hand on Sidney’s head, puts just a little bit of pressure, scratching his scalp. Sidney lets out a big, sleepy sigh and drops down again. “‘Kay.”

Geno waits for Sidney’s snoring to pick back up and then carefully gets out of bed. He steps into his closet and shuts the door, gripping his phone very hard, before speaking gruffly into it. “Still there, Suttsy?”

“Uh, _yeah_ ,” Brandon says, and then he whisper-yells, “So Sid is _there_? Holy shit.”

“Look—”

“Has he been there this whole time? Since—since buddies day? Holy shit Geno, the carpooling—”

“Is not a big deal,” Geno says, but Brandon’s still going, too fucking smart for his own good.

“Oh, he was in— _oh._ Oh! He was in bed with you. Wow, okay. He was definitely in bed with you, you guys were definitely sleeping—”

“Brandon!” Geno bursts out. “Be quiet. Not your business so shut up.”

He’s either naïve or foolish enough to think that that worked for the few more seconds it takes Brandon to continue speaking. “No, no, it kind of is my business? That’s my captain and this is kind of bad.”

Geno glares at the floor. “Why bad? Fuck you, it’s good.”

“It’s bad because it hasn’t even been a month since he broke up with Kate, and now you’re _living together._ Oh, and you’re teammates. And the faces of the franchise. Okay. And this is—this is kind of a thing that Sid does, so—”

“Not your _business_ ,” Geno says again, gritting his teeth. “Not your place to talk like this. You here, what, less than one year? Sid and I know each other longer than you play hockey in NHL.” 

“There’s a reason you guys kept this quiet,” Brandon says, like he has no idea that Geno’s moments away from finding him and wringing his scrawny neck. 

“Yes. Because people like you.”

“How did this even happen? Like, I get Sid, because Sid, but how did you—you just let him move into your house?” 

He’s too busy feeling absurdly defensive of Sid for a few seconds to really articulate a response that’s not “Fuck you,” again, but Brandon is patient and waits for him. “I—I’m tell him to stay, at first. Then he just keep stay, I’m not throw him out! I’m not—it’s good, Suttsy. Trust me.” He can hear Brandon formulating another protest and cuts in with the kill-shot, one that he hopes dearly is true and strongly suspects it is. “Sid is happy.”

Brandon sighs heavily, like he is very tired and also much older than 24. “Okay, but—”

“No but. Really not right for you talk like this, sorry.” 

It takes a while for Brandon to finally stand down, sighing again. “You’re right, fine. I don’t—I’m sorry, okay? But you’re my friends and my teammates and I feel like I need to do something here to—”

“Can do something,” Geno says suddenly, realizing as he says it how absolutely necessary it is.

“What can I do?”

“Not tell Duper.” As Brandon groans, Geno thinks harder and quickly adds, “Or Flower or Tanger. Please. Tell nobody, but not them for—for very important.” If Brandon is difficult, he can only imagine what they’re going to be like—Flower will call him all sorts of names and make any number of idle threats, while Tanger’s threats will be quieter but very, very serious. Duper is a wild card but absolutely fierce in his protectiveness of Sid, and Geno can’t imagine any conversation with the three of them ending well for him.

“I won’t tell anybody,” Brandon says flatly. “But they’re gonna find out, you know that. Duper’s gonna find out, no way he misses this for much longer. And it’s kind of insane that Nealer hasn’t found out yet.”

Nealer might be fourth on his list of people he wants to know the least, if only because of how fucking annoying he’s going to be. But Geno is ready for this conversation to be over now, ready to crawl back into bed with Sidney and curl around him until he remembers why this is absolutely worth the hassle. “They won’t find out if you shut up. Bye, Stanley.”

“I reserve the right to say I told ya so,” Brandon sing-songs, and Geno hangs up on him.

Sidney is blessedly still asleep when Geno rejoins him, sliding in along his back and looping an arm over his waist. He mumbles something indistinct and soft and presses back against Geno’s front. Geno kisses the back of Sidney’s neck and breathes in his warm smell until his heart stops pounding enough to let him doze off again. 

He feels like Brandon’s constantly watching them after that, especially as Geno rejoins the lineup and spends more time around the team again. He keeps his promise of not saying anything, at least, but Geno can’t help feeling judged, and it makes him surly and crabby whenever Brandon’s around.

“You like young Duper,” Geno tells him darkly at practice, as they watch Sidney’s line on a rush. Brandon swings his head to grin at him.

“Is that supposed to be an insult? Duper’s awesome.”

“Duper’s nosy,” Geno says, and then his line is being whistled in so he starts skating off, calling back, “But you worse at PK!”

“That’s low, G,” Brandon calls back. He looks totally delighted. 

Geno thinks he’s so adverse to people knowing about them because he knows how it looks on the outside. He knows it looks totally crazy. But nobody but Sidney and Geno really know how good it is, and he doesn’t think anybody else could understand, because it’s not the right way to do things. 

“Where Mario think you live?” Geno asks Sidney over breakfast one morning. Sidney starts and blinks sleepily at his oatmeal for a little while, before leveling wide eyes on Geno.

“Huh? Why?”

Geno shrugs and keeps looking at Sidney, waiting for him to answer. Sidney seems to think about it. “Uh, I don’t know. He hasn’t asked. Maybe he’s assuming the apartment downtown, but—I let that lease go and I thought he knew that but maybe he didn’t.” Sidney shrugs, too, and spoons up more oatmeal. “Why?”

Geno thinks for a bit too, wondering how much of this conversation he actually wants to have. It’s the first time they’ve even approached talking about this, so he wants to tread carefully. “What he say if you tell him you here?”

Sidney chuckles. “Gosh, I don’t know. It’s kind of crazy, but—you’re not the craziest person I’ve lived with.”

He’s not actually sure he wants to hear more about this, but he’s suddenly morbidly fascinated. “Really?”

“Yeah. Remember, um, Brenda, the one who worked at my dental clinic? She threw all my clothes in her pool when she dumped me. It really sucked.”

“You live with her?” Geno has to think back to Brenda; she had been a while ago, and though he might be fuzzy on the timeline, he’s pretty sure she and Sidney had only dated for about two months. 

“I mean, not officially. I just stayed there a lot. It’s like—I’m away all the time, right? So what time I do have in Pittsburgh, I liked to spend it at her place. It was just—efficient. And not as awkward as taking her to Mario’s.”

“Could finish own house, take her there,” Geno says, though he’s irrationally glad that Sidney never did. Sidney narrows his eyes, brow furrowing.

“Yeah, but—I haven’t yet. It’s not right yet. It’s a process, Geno.” He looks down into his oatmeal again, stirring his spoon through the goopy remains. “And it always worked well once we got into a routine. Until, you know, it didn’t work anymore. And she threw all my clothes in the pool.” Sidney snorts, shaking his head. “It took me _months_ to get the chlorine smell out.”

“That why we here?” Geno asks. His heart is pounding again, because it’s—he’s been leaving it all alone because it’s good, and he doesn’t want to try and fix what’s not broken. “Good routine?”

“Yeah,” Sidney says softly, smiling across the table. He bites his bottom lip and looks uncertain. “Right?”

“Right,” Geno says. “Anyone find out, we say that.”

“It’s the truth,” Sidney says more firmly now, turning back to finish his oatmeal with gusto. “And it’s nobody’s business until we want it to be, anyway.”

“Right,” Geno says again, and he has to move around the table and kiss Sidney for that.

 

Geno goes down again against Detroit, and it’s beyond frustrating. It feels like every time he finds his groove and gets himself going, he gets injured again. The same can be said for the rest of the team, as Tanger joins Scuds, Brooksie and Paulie on IR so that their entire top four is on the shelf, and the forward core has to deal with Nealer’s suspension.

Unlike Geno, though, the team doesn’t seem to miss a beat, rolling along with another five wins while Geno ices his hamstring and watches from the press box. Sidney always comes home exhausted and excited, babbling about the Wilkes-Barre call-ups that have stepped in and held down the fort with him, and Geno kisses him and hopes that they can hold on like this until the team finds some luck. 

“It still feels like we’re treading water,” Sidney tells him. “I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, but.” He crosses his fingers on one hand and uses the other to knock on Geno’s wooden coffee table, and Geno smiles and kisses his knuckles. 

“Good team have good captain to carry them.”

“Hush,” Sidney says, knocking their foreheads together. “You’re supposed to tell me I suck.”

“No,” Geno says, drawing it out and punctuating it with a laugh. “We have this fight too much. Don’t start.”

“Stop me, then,” Sidney says with a cheeky grin. Geno can’t play hockey yet but this—he’s cleared for this, and kisses Sidney hard to prove his point.

Sidney is deliriously happy after the fifth win, an afternoon game against Calgary. Geno can’t keep his hands off him once they get home after grabbing food with some of the guys, because the buzzing, cheerful picture he makes is so welcome after how tired and bottled up he’s been after games. 

He keeps getting his hands smacked away as he tries to grab at Sidney where he’s in the kitchen, hunting for a snack. Sidney laughs as Geno crowds him up against the counter, leaning his arms on either side of him and keeping him trapped there. “We can’t start anything now,” Sidney says, his eyes dancing. “I have to nap, I’m babysitting tonight, remember?”

Geno twists his face into a pout. “Babysit? No, why?”

“Kuni and Duper are going out, it’s date night,” Sidney says, squirming to reach for an apple in the fruit bowl. He crunches a bite and Geno watches his mouth work, watches him lick his lips until his own mouth is hanging open and Sidney is jabbing him with his elbow. “Geno! Focus. You can nap with me.”

“So Kuni and Duper get laid but I can’t? Not fair, Sid.” 

Sidney wrinkles his nose, making a face like he’d just bitten into a lemon instead of an apple. “Ugh, shut up. I don’t want to think about them getting laid, gross.”

“ _Sid_ ,” Geno whines, and Sidney just gives him an apple-tinted kiss on the mouth and wriggles out of his hold.

“I’m not gonna be there forever, I think you can wait until tonight, jeez.”

“Don’t want to wait,” Geno says, but he dutifully follows Sidney up to the bedroom and curls up with him for a nap, pulling him close in bed because it’s better than nothing.

Sidney wakes him up with a kiss on the forehead as he gets ready to go, and Geno almost wishes he hadn’t. His house feels too big and too boring without Sidney in it now, and Geno kind of wanders at a loss for a little while.

He eats dinner by himself and can’t help staring across the counter at Sidney’s usual stool, empty now but with one of Sidney’s hoodies hanging off the back of it. He feels kind of like a loser staring at it and turns the TV on instead, watching a game until he’s finished eating and trying not to miss the noises Sidney makes while he watches hockey, the muttering and crabby commentary he always adds. 

Geno feels even more like a loser when he starts texting Sidney a bit plaintively, asking how the kids are and what they’re doing, if he’s bored. He gets pictures of Lola and Payton coloring at Kuni’s dining room table, and Maeva, Kody, Zoe and Zach all playing knee hockey in the living room with the furniture pushed against the wall.

_you play??_ Geno sends, grinning so hard he’s kind of glad he’s alone, because his face would probably embarrass him in front of someone. That feeling triples when Sidney replies _no but i colored_ and sends him a picture of a crude crayon drawing of a penguin playing hockey. 

_that go on fridge_ Geno texts gleefully, and he ignores any of the whiny protests Sidney sends him in response.

It’s a little while later when his phone dings again with another text from Sidney. _they’re asleep_ it says, and at first Geno thinks nothing of it, until he reads the text again and thinks much more of it, his heartbeat picking up a little. 

_i come see you?_ Geno asks, and it takes a while but Sidney eventually answers _if you want_ and he couldn’t be more obvious if he sent Geno an engraved invitation.

_i come see you_ Geno sends, and then he nearly trips scrambling to get his shoes and his coat on.

He parks a bit down the road from Kuni’s house, not far from Duper’s. Sidney’s waiting for him in the front foyer, peeking through the curtained window in the door, and Geno grins and gives him a big wave as he makes his way up the shoveled walkway. 

“You have to be quiet,” Sidney says in a hushed voice as he guides Geno into the living room, where the TV is on low and there’s a half-empty water glass on the coffee table. 

“Not planning to talk,” Geno says as he sits down on the couch with Sidney, edging in close and grabbing his hands. Sidney grins at him, his cheeks a healthy, attractive pink, and his eyes keep darting around, like they’re going to be caught in the act any minute.

“They’re due back at midnight, so we have a little while,” Sidney says. He rubs Geno’s hands in his, warming them up because he hadn’t thought to grab his gloves. “Dummy,” he mutters lowly, smiling at Geno’s hands. Geno smiles at him, feeling his own cheeks flush.

“I get excited. You ever do like this before?”

“Sort of,” Sidney says, shrugging a little. “Jack and I used to babysit his little brother sometimes, and Jack used to invite his girlfriend over. She brought a friend sometimes for me.” He grins, his lips pressed together so it looks impish and a little shy, and Geno twitches with wanting to kiss it but lets Sidney talk. “Once, his parents came home early and caught them. The girl I was with climbed out the kitchen window, though.”

Geno laughs as quietly as he can, shaking with the effort of suppressing it. “Smooth, Crosby. You throw me out window too, if Kuni come home?”

“I didn’t throw her out! I just—suggested it, shh, you’re too loud!” Geno brings their joined hands up to his mouth to muffle his laughter, practically doubling over.

“Yes, Sidney Crosby too responsible be caught with girl, too good,” Geno says, his voice quivering. “Always trust with kids, best babysitter.”

“I am a _great_ babysitter, and I’m very responsible,” Sidney says hotly. Geno gives him a sly look, rubbing his thumbs across the back of Sidney’s hands and leaning in very close.

“I know truth,” he whispers, and Sidney’s breath seems to catch. “You not good. You just pretend. You bad.”

“Yeah?” Sidney whispers back, licking his lips. “Really? How d’you know?”

Geno kisses him in response, wet and deep. Sidney practically purrs into it and wrestles his hands away so he can throw them around Geno’s neck, his preferred position for kissing. Geno tugs him against his chest, leans back into the couch cushion, and puts his hands at Sidney’s waist as they settle in. 

He’s not stupid; he knows this is all he’s going to get before they get home. But he’d never lied to Sidney when he told him he likes making out a lot. He likes the way Sidney’s mouth opens to him easy as anything, like how his tongue feels in Geno’s mouth. He loves feeling Sidney’s lips plump up against his, likes leaning back every so often to see his pink, wet, swollen handiwork. Sometimes Sidney’s hand will drift up to thumb at Geno’s lips, like he’s just as transfixed by the signs of them kissing, and Geno loves that, loves putting that dazed, wondrous look in his eyes, just from this.

He’s good at losing himself in it, his world narrowing down to Sidney’s mouth and his heavy weight against his front. He’s sure the same can be said for Sidney, and that’s probably why neither of them hear the click of the front door, or even the sounds of footsteps coming down the hall.

They both hear Kuni’s soft voice going, “Oh, Jesus Christ,” and then the snort of female laughter that must come from Maureen. Sidney and Geno spring apart and Sidney is _scarlet_ , gaping up at Kuni with his mouth open. 

Geno forces himself to twist his head to look at them too, his heartbeat kicking faster than even Sidney had gotten it going. “Don’t tell Duper,” is what Sidney manages to blurt out, and Geno almost laughs at Kuni’s flat, unimpressed look.

He lets out a pained, breathless laugh when he hears, “Don’t tell Duper what?” and sees Duper poking his head around Maureen in the doorway, freezing when he sees Sidney and Geno still basically on top of each other. “Oh,” he says lowly, and Sidney slowly detaches from Geno, stiff enough that Geno wants to grab him back and shield him. 

“You guys are early,” Sidney says in a small voice. “The kids are—they’re asleep, they were down by eight, they didn’t even know Geno was here.”

“Well, yeah, Lola and Payton would have him in their tea party if they knew he was here,” Kuni says. He, at least, looks like he wants to laugh like Maureen, and Geno tries to concentrate on that instead of the way Duper’s staring at Sidney, like he’s trying to see inside his head. “How do you look in a tiara, G?”

“I make work,” Geno says, right as Sidney rushes out, “So yeah, we should get going, it’s late—”

“You just said it was early,” Duper says. “Why don’t you two stay for coffee? That’s why Carol-Lyne and I stopped in.”

“No thanks,” Sidney says, standing up and helping Geno to his feet before dropping his hand like it burns him. 

“Okay,” Duper says, voice calm and breezy but very serious at the same time. “We’ll get breakfast tomorrow, before practice.”

“I don’t think I—”

“See you then,” Duper tells him. “Goodnight, drive home safe. Thanks for watching the kids.”

Sidney winces but hugs Kuni, Maureen and Carol-Lyne goodbye, while Geno waves and shuffles out of there as quickly as possible. He watches Sidney’s headlights in his mirror more than he really watches the road as they drive home, thinking, but he still has no idea what to say by the time they’re home. Sidney looks kind of shell-shocked, and as they go inside and start changing for bed, he keeps starting to speak and then stopping abruptly.

They get into bed together and lie on their backs, not talking for a long while but not sleeping either. Geno eventually has to ask, “You go tomorrow?” and he feels Sidney nod against his pillow.

“Yeah. I have to, don’t I? It’s Duper. I want Kuni there too though, I just texted him.”

“Want me too?” Geno asks, though he’d rather go sledding naked. Sidney shakes his head this time.

“Nah. It’s better if it’s just me. He might want to talk to you on your own though. Divide and conquer. Ugh.”

“Not his business,” Geno says, but even to his own ears it sounds weak. Brandon had been right; it had only been a matter of time. Now that Duper knows, that means Tanger and Flower, and eventually Zatkoff because of Flower, and that would spread it to the other rookies. Nealer would figure out that everybody’s talking about something he hadn’t heard and demand to know, and depending on who he’d ask, he’d get a few ridiculous stories before eventually getting the truth. 

“It could be worse,” Sidney says, and Geno stares at him in the dark until Sidney shrugs. “Could be Brooksie.”

“Oh _God_ ,” Geno groans, shuddering at the thought. “That end in fistfight.”

“No way. That can never happen, Geno, don’t even think about it. It really—it really isn’t so bad. It’s not because we’re two dudes, you know. He’s always known about me, mostly everyone does. It’s—you know.”

“I know,” Geno says. “Teammates. Live together. Bad idea.”

Sidney is quiet for a few moments, enough that Geno’s stomach sinks. Then it flips when Sidney says, “I really like living with you.”

Geno smiles slowly up at the ceiling. “Me too, Sid.”

“And I like having sex with you. I like that a _lot._ ” Geno laughs, feeling around for Sidney’s hand in the dark and squeezing it.

“I like too. We supposed to do tonight, Duper ruin it? Cockblock me _again_?”

“He kinda did,” Sidney says. “Unless, y’know.”

“What I know?”

“Do you still want to?” Sidney asks, playing at being coy. Geno waits to answer until he feels Sidney actually squirm and then gets up on his elbows to kiss Sidney hard.

“Of course want,” Geno says against Sidney’s mouth, and he leans back to look him in the eye. “Want you always. Want you stay. No matter what Duper say.”

“Me too,” Sidney whispers, his eyes very big. “I want to stay.”

“Show me,” Geno says. Sidney pulls him in for another kiss, and they slide against each other, Geno leaning his weight against Sidney until he can feel Sidney’s chest heaving, his hips shifting against Geno’s. 

Sidney pushes against him, pushing Geno off and onto his back before climbing up to straddle him at his waist, the covers bunching down behind his back. He looks down at Geno and gives him a pink-cheeked smile, mischievous and sweet at the same time. “So this is how I show you?” Sidney asks, grinding his hips down a little, creating friction against Geno’s cock that has him groaning and straining against his pajama bottoms. “This is—ah—the cost of room and board?”

“Yes,” Geno says solemnly, running his hands up and down Sidney’s ribs. “Have to keep me happy.”

“Are you happy?” Sidney asks, and Geno has to bite his tongue to keep from blurting out something very, very ridiculous, something like he’s happier than he can ever remember being.

“Could be happier,” he manages. “You could be naked.”

Sidney immediately tugs his shirt off, then goes all the way up on his knees and squirms until he gets his pants off, too. He pulls at Geno’s bottoms and tugs them almost all the way down, and Geno is happy to kick them off so they tangle in the sheets bunched down below. “Better?” Sidney asks, inching back down into a position where their cocks touch. He tips his head back and groans as they do, wrapping a loose hand around them both, and Geno groans with him.

“Yes,” Geno pants as he rocks into Sidney’s grip, feeling his temples start to prickle with sweat and his heart start to speed up. “Much better. Very happy.”

“I bet I can make you happier,” Sidney says, with the kind of determination in his voice that makes Geno excited, turned on, and just a little nervous. 

It all blurs together in a throb of heat in his as Sidney lets them go long enough to grab for the lube and a condom, dropping both on the bed beside them and raising an eyebrow. Geno swears loudly in Russian and then hisses out a fervent, “ _Yes_ ,” and he’s basically panting by the time Sidney snaps open the lube and starts to reach behind himself. It takes enormous effort to make himself say, “Happier if you let me do,” but it’s worth it for Sidney to immediately press the lube into his hands.

He can safely say that he can’t imagine being happier than when Sidney is riding his fingers, letting Geno stretch him out until he’s slick and open. His chest is heaving and flushed and his eyes are wild, and Geno doesn’t know where to look, spoiled for choice. His eyes keep catching on Sidney’s sweaty hairline, the powerful flex of his thighs, his dark, hard nipples standing out against his chest, and it’s almost sensory overload, almost too much.

It’s definitely too much when Sidney says, “Geno, come on, fuck me,” and his voice cracks with desperation.

“Yes,” Geno breathes out, slipping his fingers out of Sidney and palming both of his asscheeks, spreading and squeezing them. “That make me very happy.”

“Me too,” Sidney says, and he rolls the condom on Geno and then starts to rise up to angle Geno’s cock, starting when Geno stops him with firm hands on his hips. “What—”

Geno uses all of his strength to flip them, getting Sidney on his back with his eyes wide and his legs wrapped around Geno’s waist. “Happier like this,” Geno says. Sidney laughs incredulously, smacking Geno lightly on the shoulder when Geno just smirks at him.

“So do it, jeez, you got your way. Fuck me already.”

Geno answers by taking his cock and guiding it to Sidney’s slick hole, sliding in slow and steady until he’s balls deep and Sidney is shuddering around him. 

They get to their favorite kind of rhythm pretty fast, Sidney digging his heels into the small of Geno’s back to spur him into fucking him deep and hard. He wraps his arms around Geno’s neck and submits to being kissed while Geno stays deep for a bit and just grinds in. 

He stops kissing Sidney when he thinks it’s going to make them both come in another moment, setting up the rhythm again until Sidney’s panting harshly, digging his nails in the skin over Geno’s shoulder blades. Geno puts his back into his thrusts, seeking out Sidney’s prostate and crowing internally when he finds it, watching Sidney’s eyes light up and his back arch. 

He kisses Sidney again when he’s got that angle down, hitting it on every inward grind. “Ah,” Sidney cries out, muffled against Geno’s lips. Geno uses one hand behind his back to cradle him closer, the other to jerk him off, and he whispers, “You first,” against Sidney’s warm cheek just as he feels him start to come.

Geno can only manage a few more shallow thrusts into Sidney’s shivering body before he has to let go, too, groaning against Sidney’s sloppy, uncoordinated lips. His hips still and collapse against Sidney’s as they both sag into the mattress, sighing almost in sync enough to grin lazily at each other. 

“How much time on my lease did that buy me?” Sidney whispers eventually, and Geno doesn’t even have the energy to pull out, let alone remember what they were talking about. He forces himself to catch up and works his thick tongue until he can kiss Sidney on the forehead and respond.

“Long as you want.”

 

 

Geno meets the team at the airport when they get back from Ottawa, which earns him a lot of strange looks that he cares very little about. The guys look tired and downtrodden coming off the plane, none more than Sidney, who lights up when he sees Geno but not as much as would have coming off a win.

“The other shoe dropped,” Sidney says when he reaches Geno, and Geno gives him a hug on the tarmac in front of God and Nealer and Brian Dumoulin, who elbows Nealer hard in the gut when he starts to say “What the _fuck_ —”

“Let’s go home,” Sidney says, loud enough for at least a handful of the team to hear. Brandon passes them looking like he wants to check them both for a fever, but Geno gives him a look back that brooks no argument and he moves on quietly, muttering something about the cold. 

Because Sidney had talked to Duper, and Kuni, and he’d listened to their lecture. And then he’d come home and climbed into Geno’s lap and said, “We shouldn’t be doing this. They’re right that it’s a bad idea.”

And then he’d let Geno plan exactly what he was going to yell at Duper and Kuni, making mental notes to look up some translations of the nastier words to make sure they make sense in English, before he added, “But I really want this and I’m happy and two years ago I wouldn’t do this, but I am now. I’m too old to worry so fucking much about what I shouldn’t do.”

“Okay,” Geno had said once he’d registered all of that. “I’m old too,” he added, which made Sidney laugh as he kissed him.

Geno had been planning to meet Sidney at the airport the second he saw Duper go down. The fury he’d heard in Sidney’s voice when he’d called to check in after the game just compounded the desire. 

He has another idea when he sees Duper hobbling towards Despres’ car, Despres walking him carefully over. Sidney swallows hard when he sees him, too, whispers to Geno that it’s really bad, that it’s—and Geno will talk to him later about guilt, about how not to let it come home with him and how there was nothing he could’ve done to avoid Methot’s hipcheck or hitting Duper as a result. But that can wait for home. Geno thinks maybe this should happen now.

“Wait for me in car,” Geno says, rubbing Sidney’s back. “Want to talk to him, check how he is.”

Sidney looks a bit worried, but nods slowly when Geno hands him his car keys. “Okay. Be nice.”

“I’m always nice,” Geno says, thumping Sidney as he walks away. 

Duper’s already in Despres’ passenger seat when Geno catches up to them, and Geno asks Despres to give them a minute, climbing into the driver’s side. “The painkillers are starting to wear off,” Duper says tiredly, before Geno can say anything. “That’s either a good or bad thing for you.”

“Want to make sure you okay,” Geno says quietly. “I know knee’s not okay, but—”

“But Sid’s going home with you, even though I talked to him,” Duper finishes. “I know. Look, I’m not his dad, okay? You don’t need my blessing.”

“You my friend,” Geno says, looking Duper straight in the eye. “Want you support. Want you to know, we adults, make own choices. Don’t make Sid feel bad for choices.”

Duper goes quiet, fiddling with his seat, pushing it all the way back so his knee has room. “I don’t want to make him feel bad,” he says eventually. “Or you. I—I trust you guys when it comes to hockey, so I should trust you now, eh?”

“Yes,” Geno says. He holds his hand out for Duper to shake it. “Should trust us. And should get better quick, Sid need you.”

Duper snorts, shaking his head but shaking Geno’s hand, too. “I don’t think Sid needs anybody, G. But for some reason he wants to be around you, so don’t—don’t fuck that up. Or Tanger will come after you.”

Geno laughs, harder when Duper adds, “He’s probably going to come after you anyway. I’m your friend, so I’m warning you.”

“Thank you, Pascal. Get better so protect me from Tanger.”

“No promises. Now get out of here before poor Simon freezes to death, amazing his ass didn’t freeze to the bench in the second.”

Geno’s still laughing when he joins Sidney in his car, where he’s glaring at his phone. “Nealer won’t shut _up_ ,” Sidney grumbles. “He thinks he got us together, because Suttsy told him we’ve been together this whole time. He thinks he match-made us. Ugh.”

“I invite him for breakfast for thanks,” Geno says, and he loses it laughing again when Sidney squawks “ _No_ ,” and hits him as he starts driving them home.


End file.
